Walk a Mile in the Doctor's Sandshoes
by Lordban
Summary: The Doctor decided to switch levers with Rose at Canary Wharf and is trapped in Pete's World, leaving Rose behind with the TARDIS. The young woman has journeyed and met many people. Donna Noble. Martha Jones. River Song. Missy. Sally Sparrow. And, unfortunately, the Master. Because taking the Doctor's place always meant facing his old nemesis. S3 rewrite complete.
1. Prologue - Switched Sides

**A/N:** None of this is mine.

* * *

 **Prologue – Switched Sides**

* * *

 _Dårlig Ulv Stranden_ the Doctor thought with a small, sad smile. _Of course I'd say goodbye to her there._ "Her" referred to Rose Tyler, his companion of two years, a human female he'd fallen for, as implausible as it sounded for a Time Lord. But Rose had. She had saved him from himself, had given him the solace his broken self needed after the devastation and the guilt of the Time War. And now she was gone, or about to be.

But for now… He had to keep smiling, to keep pretending it was alright. That he was alright.

Because she was there.

"Rose" the Doctor said.

"Doctor" she replied, also smiling, but her voice thick with unshed tears. Then, "Mum."

"Rose…" Unlike the Doctor and her daughter, Jackie Tyler couldn't hide her tears. She was also the only one who was excited rather than forlorn. "Rose! You've found a way back!" The Doctor laid a hand on her shoulder, making Jackie turn. "She's coming back! My daughter is coming back!"

The Doctor shook her head. "She can't."

Jackie pointed at her daughter, standing on the beach. "But she's here! She's right here! Look, she's-, she's-"

She took off at a run, trying to enfold her daughter in a bear hug, but her arms only found thin air, and Jackie Tyler just stumbled straight through the image of her daughter, landing face-first in the sand, where she struggled to stand, not really focusing on what she was doing, moaning "No… no… no…" as the Doctor picked her up and supported her so that she could see her daughter again, her daughter who was now crying too, unable to hold out any longer.

"I'm sorry, mum! I'm so sorry!"

"She's not really here" the Doctor told Jackie. "And she can't come here. My guess is the TARDIS found a tiny crack between the two universes and she's transmitting an image of Rose through the crack so she can say goodbye to us."

"That's what it is" Rose confirmed with a sniffle. "She's burning up a sun so we can have this moment." Then Rose's expression hardened. "But this is _not_ goodbye! I'm not giving up! I know that if I tried to get through to your dimension or to bring you back right now, I'd only make both universes collapse and die, but I'll find a way. I'll find a way if it's the last thing I do!"

"And I'll race you" the Doctor said with a small smile while Jackie looked alternately at the two of them.

"I've got a head start" Rose said in a watery voice. "I can have years and years of head start. I've got the TARDIS."

"I'm a Time Lord" the Doctor answered. "It's going to be a bit humbling and extremely frustrating, having to work with humans to find us a way back to you, but I'm the one with the head start."

Rose laughed amidst her tears. Then her expression saddened again. "Why did you make us switch levers?" she asked. "It would have been me stuck on the wrong side instead of you."

Another small smile. "That magnaclamp I held. It had your name engraved on it. I decided to risk it."

"But why? Now I'm stuck on my own on this side, this universe has lost its biggest protector, and you're stuck here on the bloody long path, possibly forever! It would have been better if it had been me!"

"But it's me." The Doctor forced a grin. "Look at me, about to become domestic and all."

"At least you're not completely alone" Rose said, swiping a tear. She looked at Jackie. "Mum, I know it's a lot to ask, but… can you stay with him?"

"All three of us will, I promise" Jackie replied, sniffling. "All three of us."

Rose's eyes opened. "Mum, you can't ask Mickey to-"

"I don't mean Mickey" her mother interrupted. "I'm expecting. You're going to have a little brother, Rose. And when he grows up, this one here", and she tugged at the Doctor's ear, eliciting a "Hey!", "will tell him all about his wonderful sister and her travels across space and time."

Rose laughed again. "The Babysitter Doctor" she said, bringing yet another sad smile on the Doctor's lips. It would be an insane experience, but if he had to pick between being the War Doctor and being the Babysitter Doctor, he'd take the second anytime.

And he wasn't going to be entirely alone.

The Doctor's face grew serious again. "Rose, whatever you do, you have to promise me something. Find someone. Don't stay on your own while you try to find your way."

"I don't want to find someone! You're the only one I want traveling with me, Doctor! I love you!"

The Doctor reeled back, caught by complete surprise by such a direct admission; it was Jackie who kept him steady, this time, as she breathed a "Rose…"

"It's true. I wanted him- I wanted you- I wanted to say it before I have to go."

"And that's why I don't want you to be alone" the Doctor said. "I don't want you to run on your own and endure all the pain you're going through with nobody to help you when it becomes too much, Rose Tyler, because I-"

He stopped. It was too late. It was already too late when he had stumbled, anyway, because at some point while he was talking to her, Rose had disappeared. For good. Because unlike he'd been letting her believe, the Doctor knew there really wasn't a way back. Not anymore.

The Doctor turned, and embraced Jackie, who was now wailing her pain; he held her tight, muffling her cries. And there, holding Jackie Tyler as she lamented her daughter, the Doctor let go, and finally allowed himself to shed silent tears, for the loss of his life, and for the loss of Rose.

* * *

 **A/N:** Yep, this is a _Doctor Who_ rewrite of Season 3 with Rose Tyler – and _sans_ the Doctor. He'll still be around a bit, don't worry, but for the most part, Rose will be on her own and trying to fill his very big boots – or his very skinny suit, if you will. Oh, and find out what it's like to be in charge of the Doctor/Companion relationship!

The story is M rated, and not by accident. Some themes that will be explored require mature eyes, and I'll make my best to provide trigger warnings. Also, two fair warnings: English isn't my native language, and I'm not a very fast or regular updater. For the latter, at least, I'll say you'll always get an entire episode in each chapter (even if they'll vary in length).


	2. I - The Runaway Bride

**A/N:** None of this is mine.

* * *

 **I. The Runaway Bride**

* * *

"And that's why I don't want you to be alone" the Doctor said. "I don't want you to run on your own and-"

But if there was anything else the Doctor said to her, Rose didn't get to hear it. The shockwave from the supernova had reached the TARDIS, a blast of superheated plasma sending it tumbling across space in its wash, forcing Rose to hold on for dear life.

And then, after the longest time – or perhaps a few seconds – it stopped, and Rose found herself on the floor of the living ship, left to look up and face the bereaving reality that she was truly, completely alone…

… save for the red-headed woman in her wedding dress who stood directly ahead of her.

Rose jumped with a yelped "WHAT?", and noticed the woman who'd just appeared was fuming.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "Where am I? What the hell is this place? Oi, answer me, Blondie!"

"But- but- but- You cannot possibly be here!" Rose stuttered. "Who _are_ you?"

"I asked first!" the woman shouted.

"But you _can't_ be here!"

"Watch me leaving, then!"

The woman spun on her heels and went straight for the TARDIS' door ("No, don't!"), opening it and making to cross through – and barely holding herself back before she fell into the rapidly expanding, roiling cloud of matter which had burst from the supernova. This time, she was the one who blubbered.

"But- but- but- but-"

Rose rushed to pull the frightened woman back and closed the door. She turned around to face the red-head, whose face had turned almost as white as her wedding dress. Rose smiled despite herself – of course this woman would be terrified, having either been in the final preparations for her wedding or already there, and suddenly found herself transported in an alien spaceship, tried to run out of it and opened its door to find herself in the middle of a star's explosion. Yeah, that would be shocking.

"This is the Doctor's ship – the TARDIS" Rose said as gently as she could when the woman looked at her. "You're in space. And my name is Rose Tyler."

"How- how-"

Rose let out a weak chuckle. "Don't ask me how she does it, I have no idea. But you're safe here, it's all that counts, and right now, we're going to get you back where you were and when. Just tell me where we need to go."

"St Mary's, in Chiswick" the other woman said weakly as she leaned and almost let herself slide along the wall right next to the TARDIS' door.

"What's the day?"

This seemed to shake the woman out of her panic and straight back to ire. "Are you kidding me? It's Christmas Eve! Who doesn't know when it's Christmas Eve? Oh, I hate Christmas, and I hate Nerys. I _hate_ Nerys. What are you to her, anyway? Best friend? Cousin? Lost sister?"

"I have no idea who Nerys is" Rose said apologetically, "and I really need to know what time it was right before you came here and what year, so I can take you back and you can forget what just happened."

"Like hell I'm going to forget!" the woman shouted. "You're taking me back to my marriage, I'm calling the police as soon as we're there, I'm getting married, and my husband and I are suing the living backside off ya!"

Had she had been having any other day, Rose might have managed a bit more patience, but as she was, she snapped.

"Oi, you, whoever you are, get off your high horse!"

"My high horse? _My_ high horse?" The other woman cackled hysterically. "Oh, I totally want to hear this, Blondie! Go ahead, try and tell me how it makes any bloody sense for the kidnapper to blame her victim!"

"I did _not_ kidnap you" Rose fired back hotly. "I have no idea what you're doing here, I have no idea how you got here, I have no idea who you are, I don't even know that you're freakin' human to begin with, and you're lucky I'm even botherin' to try and help you right now, because you'll still get your wedding, I'll get you back to get married, and you can go on and live your happily ever after with your husband, your families, your friends and any number of kids you'll like while I go home alone, without my mother, without my lover, without a single one of my friends, without _anyone_ left in this universe and certainly without getting any thanks from _you_! So I ask again! _Year_! _Time of the day_!"

"2007! Ten to three!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"Now get out of the way and hold onto something!"

"Fine!"

Rose huffed and went to work on the TARDIS, doing her best to keep focused on the coordinates and to ignore the grumbling of the fuming woman in the wedding dress, stumbling as best she could through the process the ship had taught her, trying to avoid mistakes which would assuredly-

"Oi! I don't have all day!"

"And you're not going anywhere unless you let me work on this!" Rose snapped back, before she returned her attention to the instruments, grumbling an "I understand better what he means by stupid apes" which fortunately wasn't heard by the angry bride.

Finally, Rose finished imputing the coordinates, and launched the TARDIS, grabbing a hold protruding from the console for a voyage that wasn't quite as shaky as being carried on the waves of the supernova, but certainly not smooth.

The moment the TARDIS stopped, the other woman made for the door without a single word – at least, until after she'd opened it and saw what was going on outside.

"I said 'Saint Mary's!' Not whatever random thoroughfare in London!"

"Space and time travel's not exactly easy!"

"I'm going to be late!"

"Not if you let me work out what just happened!"

"Taxi!" The woman was running off as best she could in her wedding dress.

Rose groaned. _This woman's impossible…_ She stepped outside, to at least keep an eye on the would-be bride, who was trying hard to get one of the many taxis which drove past, and met no success at all, to Rose's initial bafflement; then she had a grim chuckle when she realized a running bride shouting after taxis on a major street was something very much out of place and the woman was going to be lucky to get someone to stop anytime soon.

Eventually, the woman ran out of breath, and traipsed back to the TARDIS.

"None of them are stopping! They think I'm in disguise, or worse!"

Rose sighed. _Guess I have to._ "Get back in" she said, "it's only a short distance."

"No way! That box is too weird!"

"It's just a bit bigger on the inside" Rose said. "And I'll get you backwards a bit in time as well, the rest of the guests will barely have time to notice." An image of a flying predator flashed through Rose's mind. "Or just a little late" she amended. "Just to be on the safe side."

"I'll try my luck with more taxis, thanks" the woman replied, "I'm not arriving late at my own wedding ceremony!"

Rose gave an exasperated sigh, and tossed her phone to the bride. "Call your folks. I'll get some money for a taxi and be right out."

She ran back into the TARDIS, headed straight for her room, where she rummaged for her wallet, hoping she'd have enough for the fare; she ran back out, only to see her phone flying back at her from a taxi's window and to hear a loud "I'll see you in court!"

The taxi doubled back as Rose let out another frustrated sigh – which died the moment she got a glimpse of the driver. "Oh no…"

She ran back into the TARDIS. "I'm going to need your help, I need to catch a taxi. Can you actually fly?" There was a faint hum in Rose's mind which she took as assent.

"Well, let's get going, then! Just show me what I have to- Woah!"

Apparently, the TARDIS had decided it would take too long to teach Rose how to actually fly her and taken matters into her own hands, leaving the young woman to grab on and wonder about just how weird a blue box flying through London would look.

"Tell me nobody's going to see this" Rose said weakly.

She made for the door, creaking it open just enough that she could see where they were going. Something burst behind her, and she looked back, watching sparks falling after a small explosion. "Oh, no…"

There was a lurch, then the equivalent of an irate hum made itself known in Rose's mind.

"Alright, alright, I'll keep an eye on the road!"

The TARDIS flew on, more small explosions happening behind Rose, which she forced herself to ignore – they were catching up with the taxi, and definitely not headed for Chiswick. Soon enough, they were close enough that Rose could spot the bride, who was looking at her white-faced.

"How do you do that?" the woman shouted through the window, her panic evident.

"Nevermind that!" Rose shouted back. "You need to get out of this taxi now!"

"I know that! And I can't fly like you, Martian girl!"

"I'm not flying, the TARDIS is! And I'm human!"

"You're standing on thin air, holding your hand out and flying at the same speed the car moves!"

Rose blinked. Then she realized. "Perception filter, a blue box flying through London would be too noticeable!"

"And a flying girl isn't?"

"I don't have time to explain, you have to get out of this taxi!"

"I can't! It's locked!"

"Right" Rose said, for herself. "Well, no time like the present." She pulled out the sonic screwdriver the TARDIS had made for her some months back, fiddling with it for an instant. "Got it!"

She pointed the tool at the door; it flashed pink and whirred, and there was a loud click signalling the unlocking. But the woman didn't open the door, she just lowered the window.

"Santa's a robot!" she shouted.

"Tell you about that later" Rose shouted back. "You need to jump!"

"I'm not jumping on the motorway!"

"I'll catch you!"

"I can't fly!"

"Look! I know what these Santas are, and it's actually bad news that they haven't killed you, because it means they're going to do something worse! I'm your only chance!"

"I'm in my wedding dress!"

"It doesn't-" Rose cooled down all of a sudden. "Oh. You're going to do it, then!"

The woman swallowed nervously and opened the door, saying something Rose could not hear over the rushing air.

"I've got you!" Rose shouted encouragingly; she decided to add a little embroidery. "I'm a trained athlete, bronze medallist. I'm not going to let you fall!"

"You better not, or I'm so coming back to haunt your little blonde Martian ass!"

"I'm not a Martian! Now jump!"

And jump the woman did, reaching for Rose who caught her, propelling her with her backwards so the two would land inside the TARDIS.

"You can land now!" Rose shouted at the sentient ship, "I've got her!"

"We're inside the box!" Donna said in disbelief.

"I told you" Rose said, disentangling herself from the bride. "Now we need to land, and we'll see where we go from there."

And land they did, on a nearby rooftop, with the TARDIS letting Rose clearly understand that they weren't going to travel again for a bit. The young woman replied by patting one of the walls.

"Thank you, old girl" she said, before turning to bride. "Did you get anyone on the phone?"

"No" the woman said dejectedly. "All I could do was leave a message."

"Did you tell them when you'd get there?"

The bride looked at her watch and sighed, walking out to find herself on a rooftop. "I've missed my wedding" she told Rose when the young woman was also out.

"Not yet. If you tell me when you've told them you'd be there, I'll get you back in time just late enough that you can still be there."

"Doesn't matter. It's back-to-back ceremonies, the priest won't wait that long."

"Then he'll marry you when he's done with his schedule" Rose said with a flinty tone. "I'm getting you to your wedding if it's the last thing I do."

The woman turned to face Rose. "Why do you even care?"

"Because that Santa, it was hunting you, and if there was one, there are likely others" Rose said. "And whatever they wanted you for, it's not good. I've got to protect you, and I've got to find out why they want you."

The woman snorted. "I've got myself a Martian bodyguard."

"Human, actually" Rose said. "I wish the Doctor were there instead of me." She lowered her head, now talking for herself. "He should have been the one here." Reality caught up with Rose, crashing onto her with all the strength that had been staved off by the bride's sudden apparition inside the TARDIS. "He should be here instead of me."

Rose began to cry in earnest, mourning for the Doctor, for her mother. She certainly didn't expect the bride to try and comfort her, much less to hug her and say something – say what? – say anything, really, the words didn't really matter, just that they meant well. And that was not much, nowhere near enough, but that was something.

* * *

The two women were back inside the TARDIS, inside a small, homely kitchen the ship had apparently created for Rose, sitting in front of a cup of tea each and mulling their respective misfortunes, at least until the bride broke the silence.

"I'm Donna, Donna Noble" she said. "And I'm sorry about earlier, Blondie – sorry again, I forgot your name."

"Rose Tyler" Rose said with a weak smile. "Don't worry, you were a bit preoccupied."

Donna chortled. "A bit. You're really human, then?"

"Yep" Rose said, popping the 'p' nostalgically.

"And you're alone."

The young woman looked down at her cup. "You did hear that."

"Yeah…"

"Want to talk about it?" Rose looked up, and Donna continued. "I mean, you said you could take me backwards in time, taking a moment or two to help you feel better's a fair price in exchange for time travel that gets me married before New Year." She smiled faintly at that, a friendly smile which Rose echoed.

"It's a decent deal. But we've got to do something to hide you before we do that." She got up and made for the kitchen door. "I'll be right back". She smiled weakly. "I think. The Doctor left a bit of a mess with his stuff."

"That's men for you" Donna quipped. "Want a hand?"

"Thanks, but it's too small, and you wouldn't know what to look for. Help yourself to whatever you want – human food and drinks all around, I've always made sure to carry a bit of London with me. Oh", and the smile turned impish, "and hope you didn't sleep as badly as brides normally do before their wedding day, because you're about to become one of the rare few humans who have a day on Earth that lasts thirty-plus hours."

Donna rolled her eyes. "Human, but crazy."

"I'll have you know it's 'travelled'!" Rose shouted as she walked away, and Donna chuckled, before she turned back to her tea. "Nobody's ever going to believe this if I tell them" she said for herself, sporting a small smile. "Rose Tyler. Weird travelled human." The smile turned to a sigh. "Girl's got an interesting life, but I wouldn't trade for it if it meant being as lonely as she feels…"

She spotted Rose's phone, lying to the side on what Donna could best label as a crazy alien counter. "Well, I'm not alone in my world. If my dear mum bothers to pick up."

* * *

"She still won't pick up" Donna grumbled a good hour later, phone still in hand, when a red-eyed Rose finally made it back into the kitchen, and proceeded to stare at the older woman. "My mum" Donna elaborated. "Left five more messages, her phone must be off or something."

"You left five messages" Rose said.

"Called a dozen times, too" Donna replied, frowning at the phone as if it were its fault. "Never got anyone."

"You left five messages" Rose repeated.

"So what?" Donna said, her temper returning. "If she'd bothered to keep her phone open I wouldn't have nagged her."

Rose didn't reply. She walked around the table and crumpled into the chair opposite Donna.

"Something wrong, Blondie?" the bride asked a bit more soothingly.

"We've missed your wedding" Rose said.

"You said we could go back in time" Donna replied.

"Not anymore."

"What do you mean, not anymore?"

"Your family know you weren't back there in reasonable time, now, which means it's become part of established events. It'd create a paradox if I brought you back."

"And are paradoxes bad?"

"I've tried for one once. It's end of the world-bad."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"…"

"…"

"I've missed my wedding."

Neither woman spoke for a bit, until Donna broke the silence. "So, what do we do know?"

"Should take you back to your family – with a real taxi, this time" Rose said with a half-hearted smile.

"There was supposed to be a reception" Donna said. "They probably cancelled, though."

"We'll check it out just in case and then take you home. Oh", and Rose held out what looked suspiciously like a simple golden ring, "you should wear this."

"Must you rub it in?" Donna said tartly.

"Bio-damper. It'll hide your signature from the Santas, they won't be able to follow you easy. Will make my job a bit simpler."

"What job?"

"Finding out what's going on. Can't really do that if I've got to stick around and protect you 24/7."

"Surely there's someone whose job it is rather than letting a lonely teen do it, Blondie."

"Not a teen. And not anymore" Rose said sadly. "The Doctor's gone."

"The Doctor?"

"Brilliant man – well, alien. I was his companion for a couple of years, until Canary Wharf. That's his ship we're on."

"He belonged to a secret government agency of some sort dealing with this kind of weird… stuff?"

"Freelancer. And there's no secret government agency around that I know to contact."

"So there was one."

"Torchwood, yeah. Chartered in 1879 by Queen Victoria. Bit of a temper, the Queen. Knighted us and banished us from the UK on the same day." Rose chortled. "I got banished over a hundred years before I was born."

"You're kidding me" Donna said flatly.

"Time-traveller, remember?"

"You met Queen Victoria?"

"And Charles Dickens."

Donna stared at the young woman. "You've met Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens."

"And a couple others."

"You've been around."

"I have."

"And I have to find Lance." Donna smiled wanly. "Can't time travel, plain little me, got to reschedule that wedding the normal way."

"Don't want to get married out of order?" Rose said teasingly.

"My grandfather would love being there for that one, but trust me, you _don't_ want my mum along for that ride."

Rose laughed. "Alright, no wedding out of order. Where to, then, Donna Noble?"

"I thought you said we'd check the reception."

"I did, just gotta know where it's happening."

"The Orangery, Kensington Palace Grounds. Bad Wolf Lounge."

Rose stared at Donna for an instant. "Yeah. I'm coming along."

"You were always going to, Blondie" Donna said sternly. "You get to explain why I missed my wedding."

* * *

Rose was a bit distracted while on the taxi, but Donna didn't hold it against her. The young woman – the girl, really – had apparently lost so much it made Donna feel much better off, whole just-missed-my-wedding thing included. Night had fallen by now, and Donna had been reminiscing about her fiancé, Lance (Rose kept her opinions about him to herself, but she did seem to relax and enjoy the conversation with the older woman, for all her distraction, and had inquired a bit about how and where they'd met).

The two women ended up making it to the Orangery. Rose had a small smile when she thought about how out of place she'd have felt two years before if she'd had to show up at such a posh place. As she was now, she wasn't bothered about how a chav from the Estates would blend in.

Donna was another matter. The involuntary runaway bride carried rather obvious tell-tale traces of her adventures earlier during the day, especially on the hem of her robes.

"Not much you can do about it" Rose said soothingly, eliciting a nervous laugh. "'sides, it's going to help me being credible."

"There's that."

"There's light in the lounge" Rose observed. "Guess we're good to go."

Donna drew a deep breath. "Right. No time like the present."

The two women headed for the entrance, not quite drawing the kind of disapproving reaction Rose expected from the impeccably suited butler, a thin, graying gentleman with a high forehead and blue eyes.

"You must be Donna Noble and Rose Tyler" the man said, talking rather fast with a hint of a Scottish accent.

"We are" Donna replied.

"Do proceed, Miss Noble. I only need give something to Miss Tyler, and then I'll be on my merry- I mean to say, I'll return to my service."

Rose eyed the man suspiciously. "You have something for me?"

"Yes, yes, I do" the butler said, retrieving a small envelope from an inside pocket. "I was told to hand this to Miss Rose Tyler when she arrived with the bride."

"Who by?"

"Oh, a woman at the reception. Said you'd know her."

Rose frowned. _Then again, if the Bad Wolf is involved, I'm not going to get anything out of this man._ "Thank you, then" she said, taking the envelope and pocketing it before she headed inside.

The first thing she saw entering the richly decorated lounge was Donna spinning around to face away from a rather tense crowd and address her.

"They had the reception without me!" the red-head said, fuming once more.

Rose gave Donna a look of commiseration, which turned into a frown levelled at a blonde woman who sniffed a remark about the reception being paid for anyway.

"Thanks, Nerys" Donna snarked.

"What were we supposed to do?" an older woman said, whom Rose figured likely to be Donna's mother. "I got your silly little messages in the end – I'm on Earth, just what was that about? – What did you do? How did you do it? I mean, what's the trick, because I'd like to know-"

But what the woman wanted to know remained a mystery as Donna burst into tears, stopping probable-mum dead in her tracks and having most of the room scramble, starting with a man who was clearly the groom, Lance, who enfolded Donna in an embrace and slowly turned her around as he rocked her – which gave Donna just enough of an opportunity to wink at Rose. Then the family and guests burst into applause, and Rose joined in. Best way to blend in was to start immediately.

* * *

Nobody really bothered the unexpected guest past her quick "Oh, I'm Rose Tyler", and nobody really seemed to care about the chav who'd ended up bringing Donna back from wherever. The lack of attention suited Rose, as it allowed her to quietly look up that HC Clements firm Donna and Lance worked at (she temped there, he was the head of human resources – match made in improbability). HC Clements, as it turned out, was also the name of the CEO _and_ a propriety of Torchwood, of all things, sending an alarm bell ringing in Rose's mind. She tried to put it off by checking out the letter which had been left behind for _Rose Tyler, Guest of Donna Noble, Bad Wolf Lounge_ , but it only turned out to be a suspiciously blank piece of paper Rose was pretty certain was psychic. This, too, triggered an alarm for the young woman – who in time and space could have wanted to send her psychic paper, why, and how had they known she'd be at this particular not-wedding reception?

Rose groaned, pocketing back the envelope and taking a gander around the lounge and its guests, trying to spot anything unusual or interesting. Which there was, as someone was apparently filming the whole scene, a tall young man with wavy dark hair just a bit longer than Rose's, whom she asked about the wedding and whether he'd filmed.

"Oh, I take the whole thing. They all had a look, of course. They said 'sell it to _You've Been Framed_ '. I say, more like the news. Here we are.'

And here they were indeed. Rose watched the progression of Donna halfway up the aisle, until she started glowing with strangely familiar golden light and then transformed into a plume of golden dust, which somehow fled _through_ the ceiling.

"Thanks, mate, that was interesting" Rose said, mulling over the oddly familiar look to the scene, but she couldn't quite remember what it was that she'd seen that was similar, and it annoyed her.

"Good trick" the cameraman said. "I'll give her that. I was clapping."

"Yeah." Rose walked off, returning to her observing position in a corner of the lounge. She resumed watching, absently noting the Christmas-themed decors, Donna's and Lance's family (that hat perched on probable-mum's head was quite, something), the two people in Santa clothes passing by one of the windows, a particularly bright star in the distance (her supernova?), the happy couple dancing in front of a Christmas tree and its red baubles, Nerys hounding a young man at least ten years younger, the simple but elegant banners celebrating-

 _Wait a minute. People walking around in Santa clothes at such a posh place?_

Rose sidled through the crowd and made it to the windows; what she saw there made her stomach drop. "Santas", definitely, or rather a platoon's worth of scavenger robots taking positions around the lounge and preparing to attack it – _and the trees, the trees are already in! I need to get to-_

"What's so fascinating outside, Blondie?"

Rose spun on her heel. "They found you. The Santas. We need to leave, _now_."

"You said I was hidden!" Donna protested.

"I also said the Doctor should have been the one doing this, not me" Rose said, grabbing Donna's hand. "We've gotta go! Come on!"

They made a hurried beeline towards the back exit – only to find themselves almost nose to nose with a couple of Santas and hurriedly backtracking, the constructs following them. Outside the main lounge, more Santas had taken positions around the windows, one of them holding a remote.

"We're trapped" Donna breathed. "What do we do?"

"Get everyone away from the trees" Rose replied, then she raised her voice in a clear shout. "Oi, everyone! Stay away from the trees!"

"What's wrong with the trees?" Donna asked.

"They kill. Oi! Back away! Away from the trees!"

"What's this nonsense?" probable-mum spoke up. "They're Christmas trees! Look!"

And something to look at there was – the red baubles taking off, floating upwards and coming to hover over the guests in a strangely mesmerizing dance, only Rose knew better. Well, everybody present got to know better, the baubles proceeding to dive-bomb them and explode all around the lounge were a good indication it was time to-

"Duck!"

Rose obeyed without thinking, flattening herself and finding herself looking at Donna, who flashed her a quick smile and thumbs-up. Rose bounced back up, taking sight of the Santas entering the lounge, their musical instruments held like firearms. She rolled back to hind behind the sound system, catching a glimpse of Donna taking hold of Lance and pulling him where she hid, protected by a table.

 _The sound system!_

"Oi, Santas!" Rose shouted out, rising suddenly. "Word of advice! If you're chasin' a girl with a sonic screwdriver, don't let her near the mikes!"

She activated the tiny device right next to one of said mikes, the strident sound piercing through the lounge and making everyone cover their ears – everyone who could, that is, and the robots couldn't. The whole platoon of them shook, and soon masks started falling, parts started detaching and Santas started crumbling. Rose kept at it until she was certain all of them had stopped moving, her ears protesting against the abuse. Then as soon as she let go of the activation of her screwdriver, she dived straight for the late "Santa" which had held the remote, grabbing it and stowing it inside one of her pockets – _they're bigger on the inside_ , she thought with nostalgia – and then proceeding to examine one of the robot heads, which was apparently still active, with a transmission system that had to have its own remote.

"Fantastic" she said – half-sarcasm, half-more sarcasm about the whistling still present in her head, covering all sounds.

She kept up with her examination, squinting, but not for long, a smack on her shoulder caught her attention, and Rose looked behind her to see Donna, irate again.

"Sorry, temporary loss of hearing. Be fine in a mo'. We've gotta leave before more come!"

She saw Donna nod, go back to her fiancé and quickly argue with him, or rather cow him into coming along, then she stepped outside in the chilly winter air. The young woman fiddled with her sonic screwdriver and quickly activated it next to one, then her other ear, recovering passable capabilities for the moment.

"Sorry about that" she said, spinning to face Donna and Lance. "We're not out of this yet. Something's still out there, and they have a remote that could be controlling more of the Santas. I can trace that signal…" she fiddled again with the screwdriver, "or at least get a direction from which it comes… it comes…" Her screwdriver whined. "… it comes from up there. The sky. There's something in the sky, and…"

She shook the screwdriver, then tried again.

"What is it?" Donna asked.

Rose bit her lip. "I've lost the signal. Something's up there, and it's stopped me from searching."

"And what's that thing you're using?"

"Oh, that?" Rose twirled her tool between her fingers. "Sonic screwdriver. Don't ask me how it works, I've got no idea, but it's certainly handy. More uses than a Swiss army knife."

Lance was gaping at the young woman. "Your- your friend, she's weird."

"She's also the only person around with even half an idea about what's going on, and I'm sticking with her."

"Actually… Can you give me a lift? I'd like to check something at HC Clements."

"What?" Lance was gaping again.

"Don't got a warm trail anymore" Rose said, "but I know there must be something odd at your workplace, and that's all I've got to go on right now. So, give me a lift?"

"You heard her" Donna said. Lance sighed, and led them to his car.

* * *

HC Clements' quarters were the kind of building where several hundreds of people, possibly over a thousand, worked every day, which also meant the place was _huge_. She followed Donna (along with a very intimidated Lance) to the lifts.

"Going to show you where it all started" Donna said. "Open office on the third floor. Come on!"

"Where's your workspace?" Rose asked once they were there.

"Right over there" Donna said, leading the way. "That's where…" She turned to Lance, a tender look on her face.

"That's where I'll have one less password to bother about – after you've got that computer running."

"You're not really interested in what I'm saying right now, are you, Blondie?" Donna said tartly.

"I am, and I'd love to hear all about it later, but right now, I really should be trying to find those Santas."

"Oh, alright" Donna said, typing her password and then stepping aside for Rose, who was fiddling with her sonic screwdriver.

"How many things can you use that for?" Donna asked.

"No idea" Rose said, frowning with concentration. "What do HC Clements do?"

"Security systems, you know. Entry codes, pass cards, that sort of things. It's a posh way of saying we're locksmiths."

"You're a little bit more than that" Rose said in a trailing voice as she brought up plans for the building.

"What do you mean, a bit more than that?"

Rose spun to face Donna and Lance. The groom looked a bit distraught.

"You don't know who Torchwood are" Rose said to him. A negative headshake. "Well, to put it simply, state agency, specialized in alien stuff. They're the ones behind the invasion of Dalek and Cybermen a few months back."

"An invasion?" Donna asked.

"It wasn't that easy to miss" Rose pointed out.

"I was in Spain."

"They had Cybermen in Spain, Donna."

"Scuba diving."

Rose blinked. "That's one big coincidence."

"I thought it was just another of those stories, like a spaceship crashing into Big Ben or the other one that showed up for Christmas."

Rose stared at Donna, then turned to Lance, who gave an apologetic smile. "That's three big coincidences." She stood up. "Well, you're about to get a story of your own" Rose said as she marched back to the lift.

"What story?" Donna asked. "You just looked at the plans, there's nothing wrong, is there?"

"You didn't notice anything, either of you?" Rose asked.

"Was there something to notice?" Lance asked.

"Come inside and look" Rose said, and she pointed at the bottom of the list of floors and buttons. "Noticed something?"

"Yeah, there's underground floors" Donna said flatly. "Big mystery."

"And the lowest one doesn't show up on the plans, which means there's something to hide."

"Well, some of the company's development projects are handled downstairs" Lance said uncomfortably. "Economic spying could be harmful, you understand. You'd need a key to get there, but neither Donna nor I have one, and I'm not sure there's anything down there that would interest you."

"Torchwood closed doors several months ago" Rose replied, fiddling again with her screwdriver. "This place's stayed open, tho', so there might be things down there your bosses didn't talk to you about."

"Won't help, though" Lance said. "We don't have a key."

"Well, it's lucky I don't need one, then" Rose said, activating her sonic screwdriver. "Annnd here we go!"

She turned again and looked at Donna and Lance. "Now this could be rather dangerous, so this is where I leave you."

"Not on my life, Blondie" Donna said. "These Santas are after me, and the safest place I could be is next to you. Lance?"

"I'll stay behind and call the police" the groom said, looking ready to bolt.

"You're coming!"

The man sighed and stepped back inside the lift. Rose arched an eyebrow at him. "To honour and obey?"

"You're telling me, lass."

"Oi!"

* * *

The lower basement level looked nothing like an industrial facility. The trio found themselves in a tunnel-shaped hallway which extended beyond the reach of the gloomy green lighting. The air was damp, and so were the walls and floors.

"So, there _is_ something to hide" Rose said matter-of-factly.

"Do you think that Mister Clements knows about this place?" Donna breathed, looking around.

"I think he's the boss" Rose said. "And for this part, I think you'll prefer I'm the one here rather than the Doctor" she added, pointing at three segways.

"You've got to be kidding me" Lance said.

"And Donna's in her wedding dress. Easier that way."

All three hopped onto one of the segways and started their way down the tunnel, Donna on Rose's left and Lance on her right. Donna started laughing after a bit.

"What?" Rose asked.

"This is fun!"

Rose smiled. "Scratch that remark about the Doctor."

"Doctor who?" Lance asked.

"Just the Doctor."

"Associate of yours?"

"You could say that."

"Who are you, then? I mean, this should be something for the police to investigate, not us, right?"

"Have you seen a policeman with a sonic screwdriver?"

Donna giggled. "Imagine trying to arrest someone with that pointed at them."

"Might happen in a bit" Rose said, grinning at the bride, who grinned back.

"I've got to see that."

"Still doesn't tell me why a kid has to be the one doing this" Lance pointed out.

"What do you think is going to happen when you complain to a policeman about being chased by life-sized Santa dolls, mate?"

"Good point…"

"Oh, look!" Rose pointed at a door with a "Restricted: Torchwood only" sign to their right. "Here's our stop!"

They halted, and Donna pouted. "I was having fun."

"Well, there's at least going to be a return trip" Rose pointed out, sonicking the door and opening it to reveal a very long shaft equipped with a ladder going up. "Yeah, you're not climbing that, Donna. Which means your chosen protector stays with you while I go get an eye at what's above."

"You better come back" Donna warned.

Rose gave her a tongue-in-teeth grin. "With our luck, you'd reappear in front of me if I tried."

Donna shuddered, and Rose giggled as she started her climb.

* * *

It was a little while until Rose returned, flushed with exertion. "You're not going to believe this. We're under the Thames flood barrier."

Donna stared at her. "What, there's like a secret base hidden under a major London landmark?"

"There was another one under the London Eye" Rose said. "Walking dummies nearly three years ago ring a bell?"

A flat look. "Don't tell me this is another of those stories that's actually true."

Rose stared at her. "How do you do it?"

"What?"

"… Never mind."

They went on, with a much shorter run this time before they arrived in front of another Torchwood door. This one led to a laboratory full of tubes and distillation equipment. There was something in the laboratory which made Rose uncomfortable – specifically, what looked to be the end result, collected in small tubes, a transparent liquid which started to shine with golden motes the moment Rose picked it up – and then her mouth fell open.

"Oh my God! Donna, you're shining too!"

"Oh my God! Your eyes, Blondie!"

"What do you mean, my eyes?"

"They're shining – they're shining like me!"

"They're shining a lot more" Lance interjected. "Like they're made of gold."

"Oh!" Rose looked at her reflection in the closest of the large tubes. "Oh… I've seen this before, in-"

"Wonderful!" An otherworldly voice cut in, female, hissing. "I prepared a bride, and now another has come!"

Rose and Donna looked all around them, searching for the source of the voice, then a click and a mechanical noise attracted their attention to one of the walls sliding up, revealing the room to be much larger, the labs only forming one of the side of a wide circular hall steeped downwards around a large pit at its centre. Robot scavengers lined up upper gangways; they took aim at Rose and Donna.

The alien voice kept echoing. "I have waited a long time for this, hibernating at the edge of the universe until the secret heart was uncovered and called out to be wakened."

"And you're bloody rude" Rose called back, "not botherin' to show up! You better be ginger or we're gonna have words!"

The alien cackled. "Ohhh, the child is feisty!"

"And where does this pit go?" Donna breathed.

"Down, and down, all the way, to the centre of the Earth" the alien voice said.

"And you still haven't showed up!" Rose called again. "Get down here, let's have a look at you!"

"And who are you, to speak with such command?"

Rose smiled. "I'm the Bad Wolf."

"The Bad Wolf?" Donna echoed, eyeing Rose curiously.

"Well, prepare to cower, silly little pup, because this predator is much higher on the food chain!" And the creature materialized in a sheath of blue teleportation light, revealing to be huge, three times as tall as a normal human, with the lower body being a spider and the upper body a distorted female shape crowned in chitin and adorned with several more eyes, its plating a mottled reddish brown, its carnivorous fangs showing as it turned to offer a nightmarish grin.

"I am the Empress of the Racnoss, and you two are the instruments of the rebirth of my people, and of the end of this Earth as my children feast on mankind!"

Rose turned to Donna. "I was worried about something like that" she said weakly.

"What are we going to do?"

"Wing it." Rose took hold of the taller woman. "Whatever happens, stay close to me."

"Oh, you will find no comfort from the bride, little puppy" the Empress mocked.

"You're a bit full of yourself, aren't you?" Rose replied, all worry gone from her voice.

"The prey would do well to fear the predator."

"Except you're not that high on the food chain, I don't think" Rose countered coolly. "I mean here you are, all on your own, with just one plan to resurrect your species and no idea how it's going to backfire. Facing you fresh off defeating the Cybermen and the Cult of Skaro feels a bit underwhelming."

The Racnoss hissed malevolently. "You aren't going to be so brave when you become my Christmas dinner."

"And you probably taste too foul to be anybody's dinner, but you're getting rendered anyway" Donna intervened. "Lance, get her!"

And Lance was indeed there, holding an axe ready to strike the Empress of the Racnoss, who turned her torso and addressed a spitting hiss at the groom, who took a step backwards and froze, axe in mid-air.

Then started laughing, along with the Empress.

"That was a good one!" he said, cackling. "Your face!"

"Lance is funny" the Empress said, with a hissing chuckle of her own.

Rose hugged Donna tighter to her. "I'm so sorry" she said.

"Sorry for what? Lance! Don't be so stupid, get her!"

Lance didn't. He lowered his axe and looked at Donna with contempt. "God, she's thick. Months, I've had to put up with her, months! A woman who can't even point Germany on a map!"

"He made you coffee" Rose said quietly, recalling how Donna had explained to her how the two had met. "He's been dosing you with that liquid for six months for whatever plan this Racnoss thing had."

Donna's eyes widened. "He was drugging me?"

"It was his job" Rose said with a sombre smile. "Head of Human Resources."

Lance smirked. "This time, it's personnel."

"But we were getting married!" Donna protested.

"Well, I couldn't risk you running off" Lance explained. "I had to say 'yes'. And then I was stuck with a woman who thinks the height of excitement is a new flavoured Pringle. Oh, I had to sit there and listen to all that yap, yap, yap, oh! Brad and Angelina! Is Posh pregnant? X-factor, Atkins diet, Feng-Shui, split ends, text me, text me, text me, dear God! The never-ending fountain of fat, stupid trivia… I deserve a medal!"

"That Racnoss thing intends to devour mankind, in case you missed that bit, mate!" Rose shot at him, glaring. "What's in it for you?"

"It's simple! The human race is nothing. The Empress, she can give me the stars, the chance to go out there, to see it, the size of it all! You know what I'm talking about; clearly, you're not from Earth."

"What do you know of the little pup" the Empress asked Lance, all humour gone.

"Oh, I'm from Earth, but no one important" Rose said. "Just a chav from the Estates. What's important is, why do you care about whatever is at the centre of the Earth?"

Lance tilted his head sideways. "I think she wants us to talk."

"I think so too" the Empress concurred.

"Well, tough! All we need is Donna!"

"Oh, we'll take them both. Capture them, roboforms!" the Racnoss ordered, and the robots began to march where they could climb down to reach the women.

"Hold on, hold on, let me point out the obvious" Rose said. "If you think about it, the particles you dosed Donna with activated when she walked up the aisle and teleported her to the TARDIS. They're also inside me, which means I can probably make this work in reverse and bring back the old girl…" Donna's body and Rose's eyes started to shine as Rose concentrated on the part of her mind where she felt the TARDIS hum, "… to us."

The two women suddenly found herself inside the spaceship, and Rose separated from Donna and ran to the console.

"Alright, this is going to sound crazy, but whatever that Racnoss thing is, it's at the centre of the Earth, and if nobody dug down there before, which I suspect history would remember, it means whatever is there has been since the creation of the Earth, so… hold tight, Donna!" she concluded, launching the TARDIS further back in time than she'd thought she'd ever go.

The TARDIS trembled, but it didn't last.

"We're there. And we're safe."

Rose walked to Donna, and enfolded her in a hug. "I'm so sorry."

Donna wasn't crying. "Good thing I was late at the wedding, in the end" she said in an empty voice.

"Yeah…" Rose let go. "Come. It's not going to make up for what you've lost, but there's a sight out there you'll want to see."

"I suppose" Donna said, just as emotionlessly, but she followed Rose to the door anyway.

"'s funny" Rose said. "My first trip with the Doctor, he took me to the end of the Earth. First trip I take someone, we go to its beginning."

"You've seen the end of the Earth?" Donna asked, her interest returning in spite of herself.

"They'd delayed it for centuries, really. And then" Rose had a little laugh, "you're going to think it's silly, but they ran out of money, so they just had to let the Sun expand and destroy the planet. The Earth gets destroyed because some suit decides it's not worth paying the maintenance."

"Normally budget cuts have a little less consequence."

Rose opened the door, staying behind it. "Well, here we go. I was the first human to watch the end of the Earth; it's only fair you get to be the first to watch its birth."

Donna stood in front of the now open doorway, staring with wonder. Rose permitted herself a smile, glad to see the other woman get away from how her life had just crashed into a horrible nightmare; then she stepped to Donna's side, joining her to watch.

"Look at that" Rose said. "The sun's so young. It's not even completely done yet. All this dust and the rocks and the gas. Everything's still forming."

"Where's the Earth?" Donna asked.

"All around us" Rose supplied. "All these rocks and dust floating, about to pile on together and form one big ball. I've seen this once for another planet forming, it had already begun. So all we've got to do know is look for a bigger rock than the rest that seems to attract others."

"Yeah…" Donna turned to Rose, then back to the view. "This puts the wedding in perspective. Lance was right… we're just… tiny…"

"Lance is a moron who'd kill six billion people just so he can see something exotic" Rose said harshly.

"There's that…"

There was an instant of silence, the two women just taking in the view.

"I think that's the Isle of Wight" Donna quipped as a particularly large rock flew in front of the TARDIS' doors, and Rose giggled.

"That's clearly the Isle of Man!"

The two women looked at one another, and laughed, eventually returning their attention to the spectacle outside. Then Rose's stomach dropped, as she spotted what was by far the largest mass – an entirely artificial looking star-shaped rock, webbing glinting on its sides in the young sun's light.

"The Racnoss…" she said in a whisper. "They're the centre of the Earth. They're that first big rock."

Suddenly, the TARDIS shook violently.

"What was that?" Donna asked, looking back at Rose.

"That was the Empress of the Racnoss putting two and two together" Rose said, shutting the doors. "She's pulling us back."

"What are we going to do?" asked Donna, a note of panic in her voice.

"I don't know" Rose admitted.

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I'm still new at this, okay?" Rose snapped back. She softened. "I'm sorry, Donna, I don't know yet how this is going to play out, but I can tell you one thing: this isn't going to go the way the Empress of the Racnoss intends it to. I think I can guess why my eyes glowed the way they did, and she's not going to kill us until she's tried to do something with whatever is inside you and me both. She's in for a nasty surprise. Oh, and I've got this" and Rose pulled the remote and a couple of the baubles which had been used to bombard them at the reception.

Donna shuddered. "So, no plan, just luck" she said weakly.

Rose took her hands. "Taking chances. We'll get some. And I've survived a lot worse without the Doctor and without a plan. And," and Rose's voice went steely, "I'm not letting Earth fall to ruin the moment the Doctor is no longer there to protect it. Earth is _still_ defended, and the Empress of the Racnoss is going to find out the hard way."

"The Bad Wolf" Donna whispered with awe.

"Just Rose" the young woman replied with a smile. "I've been making that one up. But I know those words all too well. They've been preceding me ever since I've started traveling with the Doctor, and they've never led me wrong."

Donna nodded, looking at least a little more reassured as the TARDIS stopped.

"Now, we're going to have to step out, and they're going to capture us" Rose said seriously, "and we're going to let them. And I promise you, this Empress of the Racnoss is really going to regret the day she decided to attack this planet we've just seen born."

"I'll hold you to that" Donna said weakly.

"Now hold on for a tick" Rose said, taking out her sonic screwdriver. "I just thought of something."

* * *

Rose had not expected to find Lance already suspended in sticky webbing when the two women stepped out. She forced herself to let the Racnoss spin her into the same webbing, looking encouragingly at a Donna nearly as white as her dress as she endured the same indignity – at least until she spotted Lance.

"I hate you" Donna said venomously.

"Well, I've think we've gone a bit beyond that now, sweetheart" the man snarked back.

Beneath them, the Empress of the Racnoss cackled. "What a lovely _ménage-à-trois_ " she taunted, "ready for their awful wedded life. Tell me… Do you want to be released?"

"Yes!" Lance and Donna said together, but not Rose, who stayed quiet, just letting her eyes fall on the Racnoss.

"You're supposed to reply too" she hissed menacingly at the blonde woman.

"I'm not playing along" Rose said. "I'm going to give you this one warning. You're about to make a terrible mistake. Stop that, and withdraw, you'll get to live another day. If you don't… I can't promise that you will."

"Is she insane?" Lance said.

"She's my next meal" the Empress said venomously. "Activate the particles! Purge every last one!"

Both Lance and Donna started to glow, and so did Rose's eyes. She felt pressure inside of them, and suddenly, she remembered something she had once said, sometime close to looking at the same kind of light, but much warmer, much more concentrated, surrounding something… wonderful…

"I looked into the heart of the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me" Rose said wistfully.

"What do you mean?" Donna asked, panicking. "What's happening?"

What was happening was not what the Empress of the Racnoss seemed to have expected. She roared as she saw that not a single particle of energy was leaving Rose, but on the contrary, those extracted from Donna and Lance, far from heading down to the centre of the Earth, were headed towards Rose's glowing eyes and were absorbed by them.

"You're not supposed to be able to resist!" the Empress hissed. "What's the meaning of this?"

Donna looked in awe at Rose, and then turned her head back to the Empress of the Racnoss. "She told you!" she said with bravado. "You're messing with the Bad Wolf! You never stood a chance!"

"What is this Bad Wolf? The Empress demands to know!"

"I have forgotten" Rose replied, her voice ringing with otherworldly echoes as she looked in the eyes on the humanoid face of the Empress of the Racnoss. "And I'm sorry to say you will never know."

The Empress started to glow with the exact same energy which, just like Lance's and Donna's, gathered and flew to merge with the energy glowing in Rose's eyes.

"Nooooo!" the Empress screamed. "This can't be happening!"

"It has" Rose said coldly. "And it is over. I warned you. You did this."

"No!"

The Empress was sheathed in blue light, and then she disappeared.

The glow in Rose's eyes faded, and she looked at Donna with a weak smile. "She's gone."

"What the- what the- what the hell are you?" Lance gibbered.

"Your rescuer" Rose said, squirming a bit until the whistling of her sonic screwdriver could make itself heard. "Good thing I found the right setting or this would have been very awkw-aaard!" The strands had weakened just enough that some gave way, propelling Rose in a haphazard arc which sent her to crash on a gangway, where she recovered, shaking cobwebs in multiple senses of the expression.

"Oof."

Ominous clicking made itself heard in the wide hall.

"Yeah, I know" Rose said. "Sorry, got a call for you" she added, pulling out her phone. "I'll put you on speaker."

Donna winced as she realized what was about to happen, and sure enough, loud, ear-splitting screeching made itself heard when Rose pointed her screwdriver at the phone, reverberating from the lab's own sound systems loud enough to cause the robot scavengers to falter and break down just like they had at the reception.

Rose looked around, wincing. "That went well."

"Aren't you forgetting something, Blondie?" Donna shouted from the webbing, prompting a "No, don't!" from Lance.

"You'd rather hang up there than take a chance with me?" Rose asked him.

"You're a complete monster!" Lance shouted back, "thousands of times worse than the Racnoss – you ruined a year's worth of planning and destroyed an almost immortal creature without even _trying_! Donna!" and he turned to his 'intended', "we've got to do something! We can't let that abomination do what it wants!"

And his words hurt Rose, calling back to other words from her now lost mother, spoken what seemed a lifetime ago. " _There'll be this woman_ " she had said, " _this strange woman walking through the marketplace. But she's not Rose Tyler. Not anymore. She's not even human._ "

"You were right" Rose said glumly.

"He's _wrong_ , Blondie!" Donna shouted. "He didn't give a damn if the world died so he could fool around, but you saved us all without lifting a finger at anyone, not even that spider-thing! It doesn't matter if your eyes act weird or your voice sounds funny, there's a billion times more humanity inside you than there is inside _him_!"

Rose looked up at Donna, tears in her eyes, but with a smile. "That's right" she whispered. "That's how the Doctor would have done it, too, and there's more humanity in him than in most humans."

Her voice became stronger. "And now I'm doing the same. I've gone and done the same. The Empress is gone. Her children will continue to sleep until the end of the Earth. It doesn't matter if I'm not really human anymore. I stand where he did, Rose Tyler, with the TARDIS, destination everywhere. I-…" She looked down at her hands. "I can do this. Until I get him back, I will do this in his stead."

She looked back up. "Thank you, Donna. Thank you."

"You're welcome, Blondie. Now, can you let me down?"

She let Donna down, sending her to swing and catching her much like she had on the motorway. Then she looked up at Lance.

"I'm going to release you" she told him. "First chance you get, you're going back to your family, the very same people you watched getting attacked and injured at your reception without a care in the world; you're going to spend Christmas with them, and all the while, you'll look every one of them in the eye, and you'll remember you'd decided traveling across the stars was worth killing all of them. And you'd better still be there on Boxing Day when the police come for you, because if you aren't, _I_ will find you, and you'll really wish you'd been dealing with Coppers instead of the Bad Wolf."

And true to her word, she let the man loose, letting him crash on one of the gangways where he got back up, looked back at the small blonde woman one last time with terror, and ran off as fast as his legs would carry him, leaving Rose and Donna alone.

Donna looked down at herself, wincing. "Oh, I'm a mess. I've got all that sticky stuff all over."

"Good thing the TARDIS is right there" Rose replied. "We'll step inside, have a nice warm shower, and when we're done I'll take you back to Christmas dinner." She grinned, tongue between her teeth. "You'll even be on time."

* * *

And on time Donna was. It was a small hop backwards, only a little less than two hours, and Rose and Donna found themselves stepping out of the TARDIS right in front of Donna's family home, the red-head dressed in warm clothes the TARDIS had provided for her, carrying her ruined wedding dress in a bag.

"Well… Here we go" Rose said. "And we're both alright."

Donna looked down. "Not that I was much good."

Rose shook her head. "In one day you were ripped away from your wedding, kidnapped again, were faced with alien technology you never had a chance of understanding, found out your intended was the world's biggest egotistical asshole in the worst possible way, travelled in time to witness the creation of the Earth and avoided becoming a giant talking spider-thing's dinner, and through it all you always kept your wits, always tried to do your best when it mattered and always found it in yourself to enjoy the small, simple pleasures almost everybody takes for granted." Rose smiled. "As far as I'm concerned, Donna Noble, you were fantastic."

"I kept getting in the way and couldn't do anything worthwhile while you were busy saving the Earth" Donna countered. "It's not hard to guess which of us two the fantastic one was."

"But you _were_ , Donna." Rose smiled at her. "If the Doctor were here, he'd have said the same. And if he'd been there, he'd have also offered you this" and Rose gestured to the TARDIS behind her. "Do you wish to travel with me?"

Donna looked at her with a bit of disbelief. "Travel where?"

"Oh, you know. Here and there. On days that aren't Christmas."

Donna's expression turned sad. "I can't."

Rose looked down. "Okay."

"No, but really… everything we did today… Do you live your life like that?"

It was Rose's time to look sadly at Donna. "Not really everyday… But yeah, there's a lot of that. It's going to be harder now I'm the one in charge, and not the Doctor" she added with a weak chuckle.

"You really miss him."

"Yeah… But he's not gone forever. We're just separated for a while."

"But how?" Donna asked. "I mean, you can travel anywhere, at any time, but you can't find him?"

Another sad smile. "It's complicated. I'm not even sure it's possible to get him back."

"But you're going to try."

"Yeah…"

Donna stood there for a moment, watching the small, formidable woman with the eyes of-

"Your eyes! They're still gold!"

Rose kicked a small stone on the pavement. "Yeah… Saw that while I was cleaning up. At least they don't glow. Still, I'll need contacts, or people are gonna think I'm not human everywhere I go. And I'm not really, not anymore."

Donna put down the bag and moved to grab Rose by the shoulders. "Like hell you aren't! I'm betting your Doctor wasn't human, but you are! You've said it yourself! Chav from the Estates! Just with those weird things happening to you. And you know what? It doesn't matter that your eyes glow or don't look none too normal. _You_ are the fantastic person here, Blondie. You just saved the world without hurting a fly and without asking anything in return. And I'm not sure anybody else could have done that."

Rose pulled Donna in for a hug, hiding her face in the taller woman's shoulder. A muffled "thank you" escaped her.

"No, thank you" Donna said fondly. "I've missed my wedding, lost a husband and there's no way I'm going to stay at HC Clements after what happened there, but that beats dead, and that's what I would have been if a girl I barged in on and nearly made go insane decided I still deserved to be helped. And that girl is coming in for Christmas dinner."

"I wouldn't" Rose protested.

"Forget the eyes, they've all seen you at the reception and you've saved them. We'll just tell them you're in a special, secret branch of police and you've got those weird contacts that can see stuff stuck in your eyes. But you're not staying alone for Christmas. Not on my life."

Rose smiled sadly as she looked up at Donna. "Yeah, you're fantastic. And you get to do the explaining."

Donna let her go and gave her a flat look. "Not a chance."

Rose laughed, a hearty laugh she never would have thought capable of letting loose not one day after she'd possibly said her goodbyes to her mother and her lover forever. Ahead of her, Donna was waiting on her doorstep, bag with her ruined wedding dress in hand and still not married, and beckoning imperiously at her. And Rose knew that no matter what had just happened, no matter how she'd changed, she was about to actually celebrate Christmas rather than flee from the painful remainder of the loved ones she'd lost. And that Rose Tyler and Donna Noble would be friends.

* * *

 **A/N:** There may have been a Doctor sighting in this episode. Oh, and don't worry about things being a bit too easy for Rose – she had a shortcut for that one (and that Bad Wolf thing does need addressing, notably the part where she keeps the Vortex inside her for longer than the Doctor and doesn't die), but there are lots of things Rose doesn't know, and it won't always be smooth sailing like that for her.


	3. II - A Rise Foretold

**A/N:** This still isn't mine for some reason.

We leave the travelled road for this one. I'm keeping most of the original plots from seasons 3 and 4, but not necessarily the order or the companions present in them, and every so often there will be an original.

Thanks to Bad Wolf Jen (things will keep changing!) and TheDoctorMulder (yep, that was him) for the reviews.

* * *

 **II. A Rise Foretold  
**

* * *

After four unsuccessful tries traveling farther and farther from Chiswick, Donna Noble had gone to Egypt expecting a nice tour and surprising discoveries, different sights and excitement that would come without the danger that seemed to accompany a blonde girl named Rose Tyler. She'd got the different sights alright, but so far the excitement was lacking (again), and as she visited yet another museum (in Luxor, this time) and found herself standing in front of yet another mummy, listening to the guide drone on about the technical principles involved in the preparation of corpses in ancient Egypt, Donna couldn't help but feel her experiences "exploring" were consistent in how they were all a bit underwhelming.

And she probably wasn't alone in feeling bored by the guide, judging as how another person, a small woman, leant close to her and breathed a comment: "It's all nice and good and scientific, but that man's not answering the most important of questions."

"What question?" Donna whispered back distractedly.

"Is it my mummy?" the other woman said with a small giggle.

Donna turned to the woman and jumped with surprise when she recognized Rose Tyler. She was about to shout a 'What?', but the little blonde woman had put a finger on her lips, making Donna flash an indignant look that was answered with a tongue-in-teeth grin.

The red-head turned back in the direction of the sarcophagus and whispered. "What are you doing here?"

"Just visiting" Rose whispered back.

"Brought a monster along?"

"I'm traveling on my own."

"You know I don't mean that. Is there anything wrong with the mummy?"

"Is it my mummy?" Rose giggled again.

"Stop that, and please, please tell me you're not here because the dead Ramesses I wants to cause the end of the world."

"Muuu~mmy" Rose sing-songed, and the guide turned to glare at her and Donna.

"Am I boring you?"

Donna and Rose looked at each other, then back at the guide.

"Meh."

* * *

"I'm touring with a group" Donna explained to Rose once the two women were outside (and firmly informed they weren't welcome back inside). "Don't have too much money to finance my trips, and group travels are cheaper, but this is turning out to be dreadful."

"How about I make it a little more interesting for you, then?" Rose offered.

Donna glared at her. "Oh no. No, no, no. Don't you dare. I'm not coming to travel with you – I'm not _that_ desperate to find new experiences!"

Rose giggled. "Actually, I was going to invite you to dinner."

"On some distant planet with six-legged waiters serving alien meat on circular brochettes dipped in weirdberry marmalade."

Rose laughed. "Nothing that fancy, although maybe I should look it up" – Donna glared at her again – "oooor maybe I'll stick to the original plan: dinner on a barge. On the Nile. In the present. Well, a little in the future, tonight, actually. Interested?"

Donna looked at Rose suspiciously. "No space sharks invited?"

Rose laughed again. "Come on! I'm not always in trouble with aliens!"

"And you weren't supposed to be in the museum with our group to begin with. How did you get there?"

"I was with your group."

"No you weren't. I'd have spotted you long before today."

"Of course I was. Look, all in order" Rose said, taking out the psychic paper she'd gotten back in London.

Donna looked at the paper suspiciously. "Doubt you'd fool anyone with a paper that says 'Weird travelled humans are allowed everywhere they please', Spacegirl. And that last bit sounded horrible."

Rose grinned. "I don't know, I rather like it."

"You're a chav, what you like doesn't count."

"Oi!" But the blonde girl laughed, and Donna grinned back. "Anyway, psychic paper. Shows people anything I'd like them to see."

"You're pulling my leg" Donna replied.

"Look again."

Donna played along, then looked back up at Rose, staring. "It's a student ID card, now."

"Yep" Rose said, popping the 'p' and grinning.

"That's useful" Donna said as Rose put the psychic paper away.

"Will be dead useful when I have to prove I'm a proper Knight and all."

"Oh, right, knighted by Queen Victoria."

"I'm Noble, Donna!"

"And I'm Donna Noble." She winced. "And that pun was even worse than the Spacegirl thing."

"I liked it too." Rose grinned. "So, dinner, tonight, you and me?"

"You ain't shiftin' me, Blondie" Donna quipped, and then she laughed. "Still, date with you beats date with Lance."

"Did he let himself get arrested in the end?"

"Oh yes, bit of a scandal at HC Clements. Gruesome, too, they said he's accused of half-eating the boss – HC Clements died the night we were with that spider thing, you know?"

Rose turned a bit queasy. "Yeah, I know. I'd spotted him. That's how I turned Lance in." She smiled weakly. "Can we change the subject?"

"Was that actually your mummy back at the museum?"

Rose grinned. "You're going to love this one."

* * *

Dinner on the barge turned out to be a much more enjoyable affair for Donna than most of her trip to Egypt so far. Truth be told, the red-head had paid very little attention to her food, but that was largely due to Rose's retelling one of her adventures – the one about the "mummy", which had turned out to only have links to ancient Egypt because of Rose punning throughout its retelling. Not that Donna thought it a bad tale – she'd laughed at the part about the barrage balloon, snickered at the antics of Captain Jack Harkness and his interactions with the Doctor, could have done without the description of the nanogene zombies, and was happy to hear about how Nancy and Jamie were eventually reunited, and of the Doctor's happiness that everybody lived. Oh, and…

"I'll never listen to a child calling for their mummy the same way again" Donna admitted.

Rose grinned. "How about calling a mummy mummy?"

"I don't know your mother well enough, and mine wouldn't be a mummy, she'd be a harpy." Donna clapped her hand over her mouth, and Rose giggled, which made Donna transition to annoyance. "Oi, cut it out, Blondie!"

Rose made a zipping gesture over her mouth in response.

"You're insane."

"Mhm-mhm!"

"Well, at least I know what it would have felt like to have a little sister, now" Donna groused.

Rose made puppy eyes and cooed, and Donna couldn't help a chortle. "Alright, you win!" she said, and the blonde girl made a triumphant unzipping gesture.

"And it feels _so_ good!"

"You're impossible." But Donna was grinning. "So, what have you been up to?"

"Oh, nothing too bad. I'm really new to doing that space and time travel thing on my own, it's tough enough to learn doing it right. Turns out the TARDIS is meant to be flown by six people who know what they are doing, not one ordinary girl with little experience and no proper instructions. I'm really making it up as I go along, with a little help from the old girl."

"You keep calling it that" Donna said.

"Her, not it" Rose corrected. "The TARDIS is alive, sentient and very powerful."

"And she doesn't like actually flying."

Rose shrugged. "Not really made for it. She's got other qualities."

"Someone else I know shares that trait."

"I'm not really made for what?"

Donna smiled fondly. "Normal life. But I'm not the best one to talk, trying to emulate you – without the whole saving the world, back on the Moon for dinner thing."

"Oi! I'll have you know I haven't faced a world-ending crisis since last Christmas!" Rose protested. This earned her a flat look from Donna.

"How long has it been for you?"

Rose cringed. "Eleven days?"

"I rest my case."

"Keep taunting me and I'm taking you straight to the living, breathing version of Ramesses I" Rose mock-threatened.

"You're only around because some idiots are going to try and resurrect him."

Rose didn't reply. She was looking around and frowning.

"What?"

"We stopped" Rose said, all traces of good humour gone.

"We have to turn back at some point" Donna noted. "We're supposed to be back at the wharf right after dessert."

"We've already turned back" Rose replied, sounding worried.

"So, little stop because we're a bit ahead of schedule – what's the big deal?"

A burst of automatic fire resounded in the night, sending everyone on deck in a panic, except for Rose. "That's what" the blonde woman said, flipping down their table so it would provide at least some cover – just in time, as several bullets from more gunfire buzzed over their heads and two more lodged themselves in the table.

"You have got to be kidding me" Donna mumbled.

There was a cry of pain very close to shore off another burst of fire, then another voice screaming long, incoherent cries, accompanied by sickening thumping.

"Oh God…" Donna said, blanching.

"They're going to make me regret the Judoon" Rose groused.

"Do I want to know?"

"Not the best of time for stories."

"Right…"

The gunfire stopped, and someone ashore yelled something which made Rose swear.

"What is it?" Donna whispered.

"They've got RPGs aimed at the barge" Rose explained. "Either we surrender or…"

Donna nodded. "Lucky we've got a Bad Wolf on board."

Rose returned Donna a queasy look. "I'm not opening that can of worms unless I absolutely have to."

Donna gulped. "It could save our lives."

Rose shook her head. "They'd freak out and shoot me dead. And then it'd be worse for the rest of you."

A member of the staff approached the two women – a young Egyptian woman, who didn't look panicked at all. "Silence" she ordered sharply. "You, all here, we get to shore, we move. You run, you dead. Now up!"

The young woman prodded Rose not too gently with her foot, and the small blonde got up. Another person on the staff, a burly young man with his hair shaved off, pushed her on a plank extended to get to shore. Once there, Rose was quickly and efficiently frisked by another hairless man, thanking the Doctor silently for the dimensional pockets he'd made for her when the search turned nothing.

The passengers of the barge were regrouped ashore, not far from where the man who had been screaming earlier was now whimpering; Rose was thankful the relative obscurity concealed the extent of the man's wounds, which must be atrocious. She was, however, completely powerless to prevent one of her abductors from shooting the man dead.

A quick headcount was made once everyone was ashore. In addition to Donna and Rose, the attackers had captured eleven other tourists and four of the members of the staff – eight men, five women and three children.

"We've got six spares, priestess" one of the men shouted in the direction of the girl who had infiltrated the staff.

"We're keeping them, there's bound to be someone getting clever and trying to escape" the priestess answered, and Rose realised their captors thought nobody could understand the language they were speaking. "Preserve our wandering kin unless you have no choice. Watch out for the blond guy in the khaki shirt, he's a former soldier. The little blonde is touched by Set; be mindful of her. Don't kill that one; shoot the red-head if you have to keep her in line and we've still got the count."

Rose barely stopped herself from gulping. Not for the first time, she wished she'd actually studied more at school – a teacher in sixth grade had been fascinated by ancient Egypt and tried to share his passion with the class, but the young Rose couldn't have cared less. As it was, all she could remember was that Set was supposed to be a not-very-nice deity – and for some reason, being "touched" by it was reason enough to spare her, and to threaten Donna before anyone else. Oh, and apparently she worried her captors – Rose could spot a few dark looks directed at her.

She didn't have time to ponder. The group of prisoners was roughly pressed into marching, and warned they had a lot of ground to cover while it was dark – if they wanted to avoid walking in the desert sun.

* * *

They ended up making good time, and were ushered in a crudely lit cavern complex right before dawn. They were split up in several groups, and Rose and Donna found themselves in the largest, shut inside a dirty holding space closed by heavy iron grating in the company of a German woman and the three children, the woman doing all she could to reassure the youngest, a ten year old girl; the other two, a teenage boy and girl, watched her silently, both looking very anxious.

They were served thick gruel and given a bucket of water, without eating implements besides the coarse earthenware bowls. Rose forced herself to eat, soon imitated by Donna; the other four tried, but were defeated by the foul, sludgy mess. Rose cleaned up her bowl as well as she could once she was finished, and quickly told her companions of misfortune that they could use the bowl to scoop water from the bucket and drink. Which the group took turns doing, draining two thirds of the water allotted to them, before settling for rest on the stone floor – for most of them. One of the side effects of what had happened with the Empress of the Racnoss and absorbing all her energy had been to make Rose need considerably less sleep than she used to; the young woman settled in the back of their pen, sitting and holding a vigil while the rest lay down upon the floor, except for the teenage girl, who made her way to Rose and addressed her in a murmur.

"How are you not scared?" the girl asked in accented English.

Rose felt a pang of pity for the girl. She, too, was scared, but the girl needed reassurance. "I've seen worse things."

"I have too" the girl replied, surprising Rose. "Those ghost things which became metal men – they were bad too. But these people, they're humans. Why did they attack us? What have we done to them?"

"We did nothing to them" Rose said. "We were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time."

"But why?"

"I don't know" Rose admitted, "but I promise you I'll do my best to get us out of here. Alright?"

"Alright" the girl sniffed.

"What's your name?"

"Anna."

"Nice to meet you, Anna. I'm Rose."

* * *

Rose spent a little time talking to the teenage girl, helping distract her long enough that she finally fell asleep in Rose's lap. Not long after, Donna made her way to Rose, looking somewhat more composed than Rose would have expected.

"You're something else, Blondie, you know" she whispered.

"I hope I don't disappoint her" Rose replied.

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Not yet, not without knowing what we're dealing with."

"Hostage takers would give their hostages a pep talk about why they really should behave, right?"

"I don't think we're hostages" Rose replied.

The worry was audible in Donna's murmur. "Did they say something you can understand?"

"The TARDIS translates all languages for me" Rose explained. "I don't know what language exactly our captors were speaking, but they talked like nobody among us could understand what they were saying."

"And what did they say?"

"Only two things of importance. They counted us – we're seventeen, somehow that means there are six spares among us."

"Oh, that's perfect" Donna said sarcastically. "We get to keep breathing as long as we don't draw the short straw."

"I don't know if they'll need to keep the other eleven alive after they've done whatever it is they want to do" Rose admitted, "and for some reason they're not keen on killing the personnel, so it might be a bit more complicated than just numbers."

"Brilliant. And what's the other important thing?"

Rose swallowed. "They're planning to kill you if I don't behave." Donna didn't reply to that. "I'm sorry."

"They're afraid of you" Donna said sombrely.

"I think they listened in on our conversation on the barge" Rose said.

"You said something about Jidoun or something like that?"

"Not related" Rose dismissed.

"What are they?"

"Space rhinos" Rose said with a weak chuckle. "They're really a sort of interplanetary police, well, more like police-for-hire. Not very bright, but very thorough. And they take a few liberties with the law if they can get away with it."

"How did you even meet those?"

"Long story."

"We've got time."

"Reminding you to catch some sleep while you can isn't gonna cut it, is it?"

"Can't very well sleep now" Donna admitted, "too tense for it."

Rose sighed. "Alright. Judoon. It really starts in late 1772 – took the TARDIS for a test drive across the Pond, and I thought I'd look up Ben Franklin while I was at it."

"Queen Victoria, Charles Dickens, and now Ben Franklin?"

"Yep."

"What happened, realized you were going barmy and needed shock therapy?"

Rose giggled. "I'd have turned crazier than I am already!"

Donna chortled. "And where do the space rhinos fit in? Revolt of the colonies?"

"Well, you can guess what a time traveller going to visit Ben Franklin is going to be interested in – his experiment to capture static electricity. And d'you know what I found out? He actually hadn't done it."

"You have _got_ to be kidding me."

"No, really" Rose said. "He was kind enough to point me to the first guy who'd tried it – a Frenchman he'd met a few years before, Thomas Dalibard. Ran his experiment in 1752."

"Let me guess" Donna said. "You went to 1752 France next."

"Yep. Nasty landing, that one, had a bit of a situation with a farmer rightly miffed about how the TARDIS had landed right in the middle of his hen coop. Not that he had much of a case to complain when he'd stolen the hens in the first place, but that's neither here nor there."

"Bad Wolves tend to scare the hens away, stolen or not" Donna remarked.

Rose groaned. "Anyway, found Dalibard, got to watch him set up his experiment – he didn't use a kite, by the way, but a metal pole isolated by empty wine bottles – and it turned out someone else was interested in his experiment, and the storm he got wasn't natural. It wasn't hard to convince the man and his friend to stay behind while I went to check what was going on, and when I got there, I saw the rain from the storm falling up, not down. Next thing I know there was this flash of light and I found myself in a cargo hold on a spaceship, with a neat slice of France and a metal pole surrounded by glass on it."

"The space rhinos captured you?"

"Apparently it was an experiment with what they call a H2O scoop" Rose explained. "They were trying to see if they could grab a good chunk of land and move it, preferably with a human intelligence or two for testing purposes."

"They didn't experiment on you, did they?" and Rose could hear the queasiness in Donna's voice.

"Nope. I remembered something about the Doctor saying Earth is a level five planet and there's strict regulations according to something called the Shadow Proclamation. They tried to lie their way out of it, but between you and me, Judoon are too thick to do that very well. They had no choice but to take me to the Shadow Proclamation in the end."

"And what is that?" Donna asked. "Space government?"

"Intergalactic government agency" Rose confirmed, "in charge of keeping things running more or less smoothly between advanced civilizations, and of slapping their wrists when they do something they shouldn't."

"They don't sound very effective."

"They're not. That thing happening with the Empress of the Racnoss arranging for you to be dosed before eating the whole planet, it's illegal according to the Shadow Proclamation."

"If it was, where were they?"

"That's what I asked them."

Donna harrumphed. "Let me guess, they spun you something about lack of personnel or budget cuts."

"You're not too far off the mark" Rose said. "Anyway, that's the bit that got me back home – well, as much as 1752 Earth could be home. 'twas a bit embarrassing for them that two females from a level 5 planet would do their appointed job, and they couldn't do anything about it without causing a paradox."

"Wait a minute, two females?"

"You helped."

There was a short, derisive laugh. "Come on, you and I both know I was useless."

"Showed me the whole trail to follow, kept me sane through it? Not to mention you kept a cool head through it all. Trust me, Donna, you were brilliant – I should know, I've seen what happens when people really suck at traveling with the Doctor."

"Hrmph."

Silence fell again, and Rose could hear Donna drifting to sleep. She felt a pang of pity for her friend. She seemed to have such low self-esteem, and Rose didn't know how to help her with that. She wanted to; Donna's words as Lance was putting her down as a monster had kept her going when she'd felt like stopping; and Rose wished she could do anything to return the favour.

* * *

When she was shaken awake, Rose estimated that she couldn't have had more than four hours of sleep. The woman who'd warned the others about her being "touched by Set" was looming in front of her, now dressed in white garb and wearing heavy jewellery that wouldn't have been out of place inside Luxor Museum. Her two tall, burly escorts were also garbed in ancient fashion, but their semi-automatic guns looked very contemporary.

"You come" the woman said bluntly, and Rose gingerly removed Anna from her lap before standing up, and one of the men prodded her to move none too gently. The woman spoke again. "You run, red-hair dies." Rose nodded, her uneasiness not feigned, and she walked out.

The strangers pushed her in a different direction from where she'd arrived. They didn't go very far before arriving in front of a very non-natural wall, also of ancient Egyptian design, its faded colours lit by braziers. An aged, bald man with a short, trimmed white beard, dressed and bejewelled not unlike the woman, was waiting for them there, holding a torch, guarded by another two burly men. He addressed the woman.

"You were correct; I too can sense the difference in the child" he said, overlooking Rose.

"Set touched her, High Priest" the woman replied. "I can feel his corruption on her. She is wrong."

"She is not wrong; she is not human" the old man said, and Rose bit back a protest.

"It would be perfect if we could find six more like her."

The older man looked at the woman with disgust. "We have the unexpected blessing of being sent a visitor from another world and with its knowledge, and your only thought is sacrifice."

"She can have no use. She would not understand our words and our goal."

"That remains to be seen." The old man made an imperious gesture, beckoning Rose to move forward, and one of Rose's escorts pushed her forward. The young woman made to follow.

"Not you" the old man barked, and Rose stopped.

"I captured her" the woman replied stonily.

"And other travellers from other lands" the man said, nostrils flaring with anger. "There will be people searching."

"The Pharaoh would not wish us to shed the blood of Egypt when we can harvest foreign slaves!"

"You are simple, and apprehend little" the man replied icily. "I will speak with the Set-touched; you will do whatever is needed to stall and gain us the time we need."

"We should be preparing the sacrifices now" the woman hissed, "not waste time bothering about strangers."

"The danger you created is yours to address."

The woman glared at the old man. "I will address it, then I will return. And when I do, you will know this foul being for what she is, and you will follow my way."

The woman turned her heel and stalked off angrily, followed by her escorts.

The old man looked at Rose and talked to her in accented English. "You should come. Our time is limited."

Rose nodded and followed, not trusting herself to talk.

The old man's escorts did not follow into what had to be a tomb, leaving him and Rose on their own. The young woman knew better than to try anything, though – she wasn't going to risk Donna because she had a temporary advantage.

Rose was led through a small maze of dusty corridors; she paid close attention to the way, scuffing her shoe a little more than necessary to mark turns. After a few minutes, the aged man led Rose into a room which looked more like an operating bloc than a funerary chamber. She stopped at the doorstep, observing and taking in all the medical and technical equipment, and of course the centrepiece: under the cold, hard glare of lamps and on an operating table lay a mummy which looked a lot like the mummy of Ramesses I.

The old man walked around the operating table and turned to face Rose. "I know you can understand us" he said in an unaccented voice, surprising Rose. "Sitre has better vision than I do, but she does not observe. You were too focused on what we were saying to not be following the conversation."

Rose swallowed. "Alright. Yes, I can understand you. I don't mean any harm, though."

"I know you do not" the old man replied. "Our men watched you. You fear for your companions, but not for yourself. You would have acted otherwise. I am pretty certain you could be gone by now if you wanted to."

Rose nodded, uncomfortable around the far too perceptive old man. "What do you want?"

"We should not stay unknown to each other. I am Merynetjeru, guardian of Ramesses Menpehtyre, whose return was foretold."

"So this is the real Ramesses I" Rose replied. "The mummy in the museum is a decoy."

The old man bowed his head. "It would be too dangerous to have left the King in the hands of foreign scientists. He may be dead, but the instruments of those who found him read that something was amiss with his remains."

Rose nodded. "I'm Rose Tyler" she said, properly entering the room and approaching the mummy. "Why did you bring me here?"

"What do you know of Set?" the man countered.

"Not much" Rose admitted. "Honestly, if you were counting on me knowing something that would help you bring a dead Pharaoh back to life you're a bit out of luck. I'm an ordinary Earth girl who hasn't even passed her A-levels."

The old man shook his head. "You are more than that, Rose Tyler. In you I see Re's protector; the companion of the sun, who guards him against the Enemy who would devour all things; whose true might is restrained, for it is dangerous and brings great changes upon the World."

"Bit more obscure than 'there's something of the wolf in you'" Rose mumbled.

"Yet on you I see also the mark of Nebthet, mistress of the house and consort of the storm. You are a strange one, Rose Tyler. And I think you _can_ help us. Your way would be better than Sitre's."

"Why does she think sacrifices are the way to return the Pharaoh?"

"Sitre has been obsessed with this idea after encountering a learned man in England" the old man replied. "She brought him here to see the King, and left him relics to study. And he studied, and he told her about the result of his findings. He said what the Pharaoh needs to awaken is human lives; that their sacrifice will bring the foretold return."

"But you think there's another way" Rose replied. "You think sacrifices aren't necessary."

"I think they won't work" the old man replied.

"Why are you doing this, then?" Rose asked. "Why do you want to bring back a Pharaoh who's been dead for thousands of years?"

"The decision does not belong to me" the old man answered. "His return has been foretold since before he was King, and it will happen now, on this day; that much is fixed."

Rose stared at the old man. "On this day?"

"Look at the King, Rose Tyler" the man said sternly. "Look at time around him."

"How am I supposed to do- that?" Rose's voice had faltered on the last word as she remembered she _had_ looked at time around something once, when the Empress of the Racnoss had involuntarily changed her. For a moment, Rose had apprehended where the future of the creature could go – and that all roads left for her to take were leading to her death, whether the creature stayed down and confronted Rose, returned to her ship and attempted to fight, or escaped Earth and was killed in space by some strange, alien spheres.

"You remember" the old man said. "You have looked at someone and seen their possible futures before."

"I have" Rose replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Then look for yourself, Rose Tyler, and decide whether you or Sitre should be the one to make the dead King return as was foretold."

Rose went to stand at the feet of the mummy and fixed her stare on it. She concentrated, trying to remember how she had felt when she'd watched the Empress of the Racnoss and seen her possible futures, trying to force herself to watch the mummy the same way.

And she felt her mind expand, regaining touch with a sense she didn't realize had been there all along, and saw the mummy rising on its own, time and again, always at her hand. It was the circumstances around her which changed – different places, this chamber but also the prisons, a large underground grotto, the desert in front of a cave opening; and always, someone died, several people died, the tourists, some of the guards, always either Sitre or Merynetjeru.

But there were a few alternatives in which Rose resisted, in which she didn't do it, in which she fled – and in all of these, Donna died near the stilled mummy and Rose's senses screamed at her that it was wrong, that it must not happen, that all of reality was threatened if Rose's friend died. And none of the alternatives showed Rose not awakening the dead mummy and Donna surviving.

A dried, weathered hand touched Rose's cheek, jostling her back into normal awareness. It was the old man, Merynetjeru; his expression was grave. "Now you have seen, companion of the sun and storm" he said. "Now you know what must happen."

Rose backed away, queasy; the man did not follow. She stared at the mummy, not really seeing it. "There's no way out of this" she breathed. "I must wake him up, and seven will die."

"Sometimes there are only bad choices" the old man said. "My King must return."

"Then I have to help you" Rose said. "But I don't know how."

The old man cracked a smile. "This is the better path. At least there won't be senseless sacrifices."

"I'm not even sure of that" Rose replied, searching her pocket for her sonic screwdriver. "You talked about strange readings. Something amiss."

"Yes. But whatever it is lays hidden within our King, and we dare not damage him."

"Well, I can try for some basic scanning" Rose said, fiddling with the screwdriver then activating it.

"That device is not from Earth" the old man observed.

"Long story" Rose said, frowning with concentration. "Don't really want to tell. Anyway, you were right about there being something strange. I'm picking up a very advanced technological signature, but it seems drained of energy."

"Before he was King, Ramesses Menpehtyre was a great soldier" the old man recounted. "He was one among the generals who fought under Tutankhamun and overthrew the followers of the Aten. It was said none who fought them could ever escape Tutankhamun's generals after they laid their gaze upon them in their fury."

Rose looked up from the mummy. "Is this supposed to have anything to do with those readings?"

"Maybe what you found is not very advanced technology, but very ancient magic" the old man countered. "Much was lost that our forefathers knew and used to defend themselves against the demons unleashed by Apep."

"Whatever this is, ancient or advanced, I don't understand how it works" Rose admitted, pocketing her screwdriver. "But I think I could power it up again, if I had a source of energy."

"This place has a generator" the man remarked. "We could redirect its energy into the device which would stir my King from his repose."

Rose shuddered. "And then someone dies."

"Perhaps that is the sacrifice my King requires."

"Perhaps not. In all timelines where it rises, the mummy disappears, then… then no matter how many are killed before, seven people die, and among them always you or Sitre."

"Someone else kills them, then."

"I don't know. The last one dies right before whoever is next is rescued."

The old man nodded thoughtfully. "But more than seven die if we wait."

"Yes" a queasy Rose said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I can do this now, and kill seven people; or I can wait until others die, and kill seven people. And if I stall too long and Donna dies, something terrible happens…"

"Then do what you must, child touched by Set."

Rose swallowed, and then nodded. Her voice was determined when she spoke. "I'm going to need a power cable. And you should light that torch again. We might need it when I'm done."

The old man bowed. "I will do as you ask."

Rose fiddled with her screwdriver as the man moved about. This was going to be her most complex use so far. The time the old man needed to get her a power cable was also a boon to figure out how the screwdriver could be made to create a bridge between the power cable and the device lodged inside the mummy… something which would result in a mockery of resurrecting a dead entity.

"I've got it" Rose said, bitterness seeping in her voice. "Jack up that cable and bring me the other end. I'll take care of the rest."

"The King will rise as was foretold" the old man said reverently, holding out the end of the cable.

"And seven people will be sacrificed" Rose added with a scowl. She seized the cable and held it out above the mummy, screwdriver ready. "I'm so sorry" she added in a whisper.

She activated the screwdriver, and felt a violent surge shake both her arms as all the power went out. It took all of two seconds before there was an explosion a short distance away.

"That was the generator" the old man said. "Did it fail? Did we fail?"

He was answered by a moan. Rose backed away from the spectacle of the mummy stirring, casting dreadful shadows under the flickering light from the torch. And then, as Rose knew it would, it vanished, and the old man shouted.

"The King! Where has he gone?"

"We'll find out later" Rose said urgently, "we need to find Sitre before one of you dies."

"Why does it matter? We need to find the King!"

"Your King is fine, but your prisoners won't be if Sitre decides the power going out is their fault!"

"This is immaterial! The King is gone! The King-"

The lights suddenly turned back on, accompanied with a few flickers.

"There, we have power" the old man said, "your concerns are unfounded. And here is my King, come to reward his faithful servant."

Rose followed the old man's gaze – and saw nothing but the room's exit. "Are you sure about this? I can't see him."

"But he's here!" the man replied with evident joy. "My King walks, living after death!"

"He's not your mummy" Rose snarked.

"Your impertinence will be forgiven in recompense for the service you have performed."

"How kind and generous of you." Rose stepped to the man and shook him up, careful not to cause him to drop the torch. "The mummy isn't here. You're only seeing it because you're desperate to see it – it's gone!"

"Oh, my King is very much alive, Rose Tyler. Now step aside, so that he can reward me."

Rose groaned, but let the man go and stepped aside, again looking in the same direction as the old man and seeing nothing. "I still see nothing."

"Then perhaps my King will only appear to those who faithfully serve him from now on – after all, his appearance would terrible to behold. But there he is, holding out his hands." The old man beamed, and kneeled down, letting the torch roll to his side. "Thank you, my King. I am your humble servant, and am grateful for your blessing." The man closed his eyes, and the King's blessing, if he was truly there, was more of a curse; the man collapsed the very instant his eyes shut completely close, and after a cry of surprise, Rose checked his pulse. There was none to find – he'd died instantly.

"No…" Rose moaned. "I did this – and at least six more are going to die." She snapped back up. "Donna, I've got to get Donna" she said frantically, reaching for the torch. "I have to go back now!"

Rose ran, but not for very long – she was back in a maze, and had to pay attention to the marks she'd left in the dust. Thankfully, nobody had followed and spoiled the markings; it only took Rose about ten minutes to make her way back through – just in time to hear a shout of terror and automatic fire.

"What in Re's name is wrong with you?" Rose heard the voice of Sitre shout, answered by a panicked "The King! The King! He's coming to take me!"

A dreadful cry pierced the air, followed by the thud of a body collapsing, and Rose knew the King had picked off his second victim. Then Sitre called out.

"Unclean beast! I feel you! Come out!"

Rose did so, nervously looking at the woman and her three burly guards – a fourth was lying sprawled on the floor.

"What did you do?" Sitre shouted at Rose.

"What you wanted to do" Rose replied, "raised your King from the dead. Except he's not happy. He's killed the old man, and now the guard, and he's going to kill again unless we leave this place."

Sitre snarled. "You speak lies! No sacrifice done!"

"The old man with the way too long name saw the same thing your guard did" Rose snarled back as the woman advanced on her, "your King advancing on him, except the old man thought he was getting blessed. He dropped dead just the same."

"Silence!" Sitre shouted, slapping Rose resoundingly before turning back to her men, switching languages. "Get her back in her pen. I will verify that the King is still slumbering. Call for four men and a pall; we will carry the King out, and then I will select the sacrifices."

"Yes, Priestess" the men answered, and one of them grabbed Rose in a painful grip. "You, come" he growled in English, and he proceeded to drag the young woman back to her prison, the lights flickering when she stumbled in.

All the prisoners were awake when Rose was kicked into the cell, stumbling forward only to be caught by Donna. "What happened?" the red-head asked. "Why did they want you?"

"To resurrect their dead Pharaoh" Rose replied tensely as she got upright.

"That's ridiculous" Donna said flatly. "I mean, you're something special alright, but resurrection?"

"Not really" Rose replied, chewing on her lip. "More like awakened a technological freak."

"The loss of power!" Donna exclaimed herself. "That was you?"

"It was" Rose said morosely.

"But why did you do that?"

"I had to do it. They were going to kill seven of you if I didn't. Even worse, they might have killed you, Donna."

Donna levelled a flat stare at Rose. "Thanks for caring, but I'm not as important as the other prisoners here – they all have someone to live for."

"You are terribly important" Rose replied very seriously, "you have no idea, and I can't really explain to you why while we're stuck here."

Donna quirked an eyebrow. "Weird travelled human thing?"

"Something like that" Rose said. She found herself enveloped in a bear hug from Donna.

"I'm so sorry, dear" the red-head said.

"You're not going to be the only one" Rose mumbled, "at least five more people-"

There was more automatic fire, and someone started screaming in the distance, letting loose their terror at the same time they kept firing; but their charger didn't last as long as the screams, nor as the shouting from other voices accompanying it and continuing after the screaming stopped.

"At least four" Rose said for Donna. "Four more people will die. Apparently at very regular intervals – maybe fifteen minutes." She checked her watch. "Twenty-five past four."

Rose felt someone tugging at her arm and turned to face Anna. The teenage girl was terrified. "What is going on? Why are they shooting? Did anyone try to escape?"

"All of us are alive that I can tell, including the restaurant's staff" Rose replied.

"Are we going to stay that way?"

Rose forced a smile. "Oh yes. Something out there is mighty angry, but not at us. They really, really shouldn't have captured us."

"But if those people are afraid, aren't they going to do something to us?"

"Right now three of them have been killed, and there might be a fourth by the time their priestess comes back to ask me what is going on."

"And what _is_ going on?" the girl asked.

Rose gave her a tight smile. "Me keeping my promise to do my best to get us out."

It didn't seem to reassure the girl much, but at least she wasn't panicking any longer as she returned to her family, leaving Rose and Donna on their own, the latter looking with concern at the former while the former stared nervously at the guard in front of their cell.

Several minutes passed in unnatural stillness, tension evident in the air. Then the young priestess stormed back in front of the cell, followed by three more men. "You, foul beast, out!" she barked.

Rose looked briefly at Donna, nodding at her friend, and then complied. She had barely made it past the cell's entrance that the furious young woman grabbed her by the collar. "Why is King gone?"

Rose rolled her eyes. "We can talk in your language; you won't understand what I have to say in English."

The priestess looked at her in shock; she did switch languages. "How can you? Our language is sacred and secret!"

"Not important" Rose snapped. "What's important is that there was a device hidden inside the Pharaoh's remains, and that we found a way to reactivate it without shedding blood – and now it's awake and killing."

"You have defiled the King, and now he is shedding the blood of Egypt!" the priestess snarled. "You were meant to die, not us!"

"I'd try telling him that" Rose snarked, and the lights flickered at that instant. "Shame you can't see him."

"I can" the guard in front of the cell said, and Rose's face fell. "The lights, the lights flicker when the King comes" she whispered, stealing a glance at her watch.

"You will carry my words to the King" the priestess ordered the guard.

"I don't know that he will listen" the guard said nervously. "He's advancing on me."

"Tell the King we know he's been defiled" the priestess instructed.

"Pharaoh… We know you've been defiled" the man repeated hesitantly.

"Merynetjeru refused to see it, and let the beast touched by Set defile you" the priestess continued, and Rose scowled at her.

"This won't work" she hissed at the priestess, who hissed back a "Silence!" as the guard stumbled through repeating her words.

"He's not stopping" the guard said, his fear growing.

"Tell him we have prepared proper sacrifices for him!"

The man gulped. "We have… prepared… proper sacrifices for you, Pharaoh."

"He can kill all inside this cell."

The guard looked in the direction of the prisoners. "You can kill all… inside…" his head snapped back to look in its original direction, and the man backed away in fright. "He doesn't care! He's not stopping!"

"Give him the Set-touched, then!"

The guard lunged for Rose, who gave a little cry of fright as she was shoved in the direction the guard had been looking, but nothing worse than a stumble happened to her.

"She passed through as if he weren't there! I can't- I can't- Please!"

"Call out his name!"

"No!"

The man turned and made to run – and screamed with terror, falling backwards and attempting to protect his head. To no avail. He crumpled the next instant, dead.

Rose checked her watch. "Sixty-six seconds" she said, her voice shaking.

"What are you babbling?" the priestess shouted, and she grabbed hold of Rose, forcing the blonde woman to spin and face her.

"It takes sixty-six seconds between the moment the lights flicker and the moment someone dies" Rose explained. "I just timed it with this man, and it's consistent with what happened for the last one who died and the old priest. The lights flicker, the King picks someone, they're the only one who can see him, and after sixty-six seconds they die. That's what's happening."

"Priestess, what are we going to do?" one of her escorts asked, frightened. "How can we appease the King's anger?"

The woman released her hold on Rose, looking at her ominously.

"It won't work" Rose said calmly. "I woke up your King, I'm not the one he's angry with. He's not going to reward you for killing his helper."

"I have to try" the priestess said stubbornly.

"You have to _think_ " Rose countered. "Your men are getting picked off one by one and now, after the third one, you haven't even considered getting out of here might be a sensible idea – the only solutions you can think of involve shedding more blood, and you've just seen for yourself the King doesn't care for anyone but his chosen victim, not even if you try to directly feed someone to him – I passed right through him, your guard said so before he died."

"You corrupted him" the priestess accused. "The King is angry with us because the old fool let you touch him!"

"Do you seriously think I'd still be breathing if your King was angry because of me?" Rose fired back hotly. "He's killing off your men without anybody being able to do anything but somehow it'd be impossible for him to touch me?"

"You said it yourself, he thinks you helped him – but he's wrong!"

"Killing me isn't going to convince him of that."

"Priestess, she's right" one of the guards say. "The King is angry, and he's not listening to your voice."

The woman spun and faced the guard who'd talked, glaring at him. "You will not speak to me this way, Kanakht" she hissed.

"But it's like the stranger said!" the man named Kanakht protested. "We're dying one by one, but the sacrifices stay safe! The King wants our deaths, not theirs!"

The priestess turned to her two other escorts. "Silence him." Neither of the men made to move, and she repeated herself irately. "Silence him, I said!"

The men did not obey. They turned towards Rose, and one of them talked to her. "What do we do?"

Rose looked at all three men, one after the other. "We let everyone out of this tomb" she finally said, "and we run."

"You can't listen to her!" the priestess shouted, and Rose turned her attention back to the woman.

"I'm sorry" Rose said. "The King doesn't wait very long between kills – I've timed that too, it's close to twelve minutes, and two already have passed. We can't waste any more time arguing." She turned back to the guards. "Open that door. I'll talk to your prisoners and tell them to follow two of you outside. The third will get me to the other prisoners, and we'll release them too."

"This is not the way!" the priestess cried out.

"My way restored life to your King. Yours just kills" Rose replied with a note of finality. She turned her attention to the prisoners, who to the exception of a smiling Donna watched her with awe. "They're letting us go" she said, switching languages. "Follow the guards outside. We'll join you with the others. You," and Rose turned back to the priestess, switching languages again, "are coming with us to make sure there are no misunderstandings."

The woman glared at Rose, but she did not challenge her.

It took a few minutes for Rose, the guard and the priestess to make their way to the two other cells. There was a small argument with the guard who kept watch over the first one, wasting a couple of valuable minutes, and when the trio reached the cell where the restaurant's personnel was being kept, the lights flickered again, and the guard who'd accompanied Rose and the priestess spoke up.

"It's me" he said. "Our King is killing me next. Hopefully I'm the last one."

Rose chewed on her lip, knowing there would be at least two more victims, but knowing better than to voice it. Instead, she said "I'm sorry."

The guard bowed to her. "No, I am sorry, priestess" he said, voice thick with emotion.

"Why do you call her 'priestess'?" the guard who'd been watching the cell asked, confused.

"Because she's the one who roused the Pharaoh, figured out why the others died at his hands, what the Pharaoh wants and how long he needs to take it, and he wants our lives. She understands the Pharaoh, not Sitre, and she knows better than to anger him further."

The other guard looked at Sitre. "Is that true?" he asked her, and the priestess glared furiously at him. "What Smenkhkare said, is that true?" the guard repeated.

Rose looked expectantly at her, and the priestess finally hissed a "Yes."

The guard in front of the door bowed to Rose, and then reached for his keys, opening the heavy grate as Rose quickly told the prisoners inside they were being let go, then she returned her attention to the guard about to die.

"I'm so sorry" she said quietly. "You didn't deserve to die."

"Maybe I did. And now the Pharaoh takes me." The man closed his eyes and bowed his head. Five seconds passed; then he collapsed, prompting an outcry from one of the serving girls.

Rose checked her watch again, then bent briefly over the man and closed his unseeing eyes. "We've got to go."

They ran. The cavern complex was too vast for people hunted by a killer with a precise schedule – "Twelve minutes and twelve seconds" Rose told her former captors as they made their way back to the surface. "That's the exact duration between each time your King kills – eleven minutes and six seconds between the moment a man dies and the moment the lights flicker next, and then the clock starts for the next victim – one minute, six seconds."

"Why are you telling us this?" the priestess asked sullenly.

"Because if any one of you survives, they must spread the word, replace the legend of the King whose rise was foretold by the facts about his arrival. Anyone who dares approach this tomb in the desert must be warned that they that bear Ramesses' stare have sixty-six seconds to live – with any luck it'll dissuade people foolish enough to face what is going to happen right now."

"My death" the guard who'd watched the restaurant's personnel said. "But I'm not letting that happen easy – I'll run back in. You all run the other way – now!"

"Lead the way" Rose ordered to the priestess, and the woman gave her a sullen look, then ran – not fast enough, not far enough that they couldn't hear the guard's scream echo, exactly sixty-six seconds after the guard saw his King manifest. "Add 'running away doesn't help' to the list of problems."

"There must be something the King wants" the priestess said, "some offer to make him stop from killing."

"Speaking of what other people want, what's the story you sold to explain away the disappearance of thirteen tourists and four local workers?" The priestess stopped to stare at Rose, who returned a glare. "You know I could understand you. And keep moving."

The priestess harrumphed. "We sent a message about wanting an important ransom in exchange for returning the prisoners. It was a way to stall until we could make the sacrifices for the King."

"Well, there's been sacrifices alright, six of them" Rose groused. "And the worst part is, I picked the least bloody option."

"You still killed them" the priestess hissed. "As you killed all yet to die at the hands of the King."

"I don't need you to remind me."

"Oh, but I will. And don't think you and your friends are free yet."

"There's three of you left, and there's seventeen of us" Rose warned the priestess. "Plus, your men won't take arms against me now."

"They doubted me because I couldn't save them" the priestess hissed back. "But now they've seen that neither can you."

Rose ignored that. "I can see light from outside. We're almost out of the woods."

"There are no woods here."

"Not exactly an expression that translates well into your language" Rose observed.

They made it outside, regrouping with the released tourists and the two guards. "You must have vehicles somewhere" Rose said to one of the guards.

"Truck, but all who could drive are dead" the man replied, pointing at another opening in the cliff.

"Lovely." Rose raised her voice, switching languages. "Can anyone here drive a lorry?"

A hand rose. "I can" the ex-soldier said.

"Perfect."

"Keys are on the truck" the guard offered, and Rose 'translated'.

They all climbed aboard, the ex-soldier with Donna and Anna sitting in the front and the rest in the back. And when Rose saw one of the guards pale, she knew there was an additional passenger.

"He followed us out of the tomb" she said.

"He did" the guard growled, then he spat on Sitre. "I curse you, and the old man! At least he had the decency to die first!"

"I will face him next" the priestess growled. And she jumped out of the truck right as the guard died, ignoring Rose's "Don't!"

"What's happening back there?" Rose heard Donna call from the front.

"Nothing!" Rose shouted back. "Keep your eyes on the road, and take care of Anna."

"That was seven, wasn't it?" Donna shouted.

Rose's eyes widened. "Seven died" she whispered. She looked outside of the truck, to the white figure of Sitre standing alone on the sand.

And Rose found her resolve. "Donna, I've got to go!" she shouted, before jumping and tumbling in the burning sands, hissing as she did so. The blonde woman scrambled back to her feet and broke into a run, knowing she had limited time to get back to the distant figure of Sitre, who was walking back towards the tomb. And Rose did catch up. But not in time; the priestess was already talking to her dead King by the time she reached her side, making offers of service that Rose knew went unheeded, offers of tribute and of blood – also unheeded.

She grabbed the woman, who let out an indignant shout. "I'm bargaining with my King for my life!"

"You're not dying, because you're number eight" Rose answered, eyes glowing gold as she called the TARDIS to her. The woman let out a cry of surprise when the ship materialized around her.

"What is this place? And the King! Where's the King?"

"Not coming in" Rose answered, flicking levers and turning dials. "Hold on to something, this is going to be a rough ride!" She pulled a final lever, and the TARDIS shook violently as the time rotor's familiar whir made itself heard, taking Rose and the priestess Sitre far away, in a different place and a different time, outside the reach of the King whose return was foretold, a place…

"… also known as Memphis, Egypt, 1354 BC" Rose said to Sitre, who stared at her in disbelief. "Funny that the TARDIS would bring you here. You might even get to meet your King while he lives."

"You're going to abandon me" the priestess realized.

"You'll do fine" Rose said quietly. "You'll adjust to the language, and you're a psychic with some small but valuable talent to see the unnatural. You have a chance to survive here, and that's better than what you were willing to give your prisoners. And it's the only mercy you're going to get after the choice you forced me to make."

"I did not force your hand, the old man did!" Sitre protested.

"No, you were the one who intended to kill, and had I not complied, you would have killed the most important woman in the entire universe, a woman so important I felt Time scream at the mere possibility she might die."

"This is all lies!"

The woman stormed out of the TARDIS – and stopped dead in the tracks, staring at the streets of ancient Memphis, teeming with activity.

"How?" the woman croaked as the other woman joined her.

"This is what you probably felt on me" Rose said in reply. "Time. I travel through it, inside the TARDIS, and I can take people along with me."

The priestess turned to stare at Rose, awed by her presence. "Who _are_ you?"

"The old man named me a companion of the sun and storm, said I bore the marks of Set and Nebthet. I'll probably never understand what he meant" Rose admitted, "after all, I'm just an Estates kid who didn't even take her A-levels and just happens to be where she is by accident."

"You bear those marks and more" the priestess said, her fear apparent. "You are an impossibility who should not be there, a human but not a human. But how?"

"I can only guess" Rose said, stepping backwards into the TARDIS. "And I'm sorry to say you will never know."

The priestess cried out in distress when the door shut, begging Rose to come back, but to no avail. The TARDIS whirred again and vanished, leaving Sitre alone in the streets of Memphis.

* * *

Rose met Donna again five minutes later – or three days, from Donna's perspective. When she saw her friend at the airport, right as she was about to embark on the plane taking her back to London, the red-haired woman broke into a run and embraced her younger friend, much to the surprise of the onlookers.

"You made it! You're alive!"

Rose laughed. "And you were wrong! Old Ramesses I didn't want to cause the end of the world!"

Donna let go of Rose and levelled a flat stare at her. "You still jinxed me, Blondie."

"Actually, you're the one who brought it up, so you jinxed us" Rose said playfully, and Donna smiled.

"I was frightened to death" the red-head admitted. "Again. At least this time our problems were mostly human."

"I'm not sure" Rose mused. "After what happened, I think I will go back and visit ancient Egypt" Rose said. "I have a feeling there's much that was hidden about its history, if the mummy of an old Pharaoh was carrying technology that ran on an electrical power supply. But first, I've got a return visit to make."

"To who?" Donna inquired.

"Old Ben Franklin" Rose said with a smile. "Got to tell him that Dalibard lied and never did run that experiment of his properly. Not really his fault, he couldn't exactly talk about how his whole apparatus and a strange girl just disappeared from his fields."

"Yeah, somehow I don't think the stories of a giant red spider thing and of an invisible mummy shambling around a tomb would sound believable either" Donna said wryly.

"Still not interested in coming for a trip?" Rose asked.

"No thanks. Second time I've met you, nearly nine months after the first one, and both times someone wanted me killed or sacrificed. This wasn't much of a trip, but it beats constantly running in fear for your life."

"It's not only that" Rose protested. "There's a lot of beautiful things too."

"Well, I'm sure I'll get to see some pretty things in China too" Donna replied. "And it'll be a lot less risky than one of your adventures."

"I'll ask you about it sometime" Rose said with a smile.

"Yeah. Just don't expect me at home until November. Say 'Hi!' to Ben Franklin for me."

"Will do" Rose said with a giggle. "Take care, Donna. And enjoy your travels."

"And you, big bad wolf" Donna said with a fond smile. "And thank you. Again."

"Anytime." Rose walked away, returning to where the TARDIS was hidden, but not making much headway before hearing Donna call her out: "Oh, and try and visit Anna! Kid really wants to thank you!"

"Will do!" Rose shouted back. And she walked off, going on to her next adventure…

* * *

Rose properly made it back to Ben Franklin. The polymath was disappointed to learn he'd been misled, but it prompted him to test out his own experiment about static electricity – with a lot of care and great distance from the lightning strike, following the advice of the strange young woman who'd visited him twice only to vanish both times before he could ask who she really was.

The young priestess born in the future would be picked up and brought to a warrior, a captain of men. She would learn the ways of ancient Egypt she had sought to emulate. And she became the wife of the great captain, soon to be a general and, on the eve of his life, something more. And upon seeing his unfinished tomb as she mourned the warrior, Sitre warned her son and grandson that her King would rise once more on a precise day, and that his return would come at the hand of a companion of the sun and storm…

… and eighty-five hundred years in her future, a man recounted a myth, retelling words of warning about a terrible creature, inexorable, inescapable: "The number of evil twice over… They that bear the Foretold's stare have sixty six seconds to live." And as he listened to these words, the Doctor understood it was no accident he and the teller of this tale were sitting together on a train in space…

* * *

 **A/N:** Yes, that mummy. Note that I'm no Egyptologist, I made-do with what knowledge I have of that part of history and there's bound to be big inaccuracies. Also note that I don't know if this contradicts old Who, I've only just laid my hands on it and have, well, a lot of seasons to go through ^^

We return to "regular" Season 3 next; Martha Jones awaits. And space rhinos. Oh, and reviews are like bananas. Except for the potassium thing.


	4. III - Judoon Platoon Upon The Moon

**A/N:** Bit of a shame we can't freeze actors in time. Would make it a lot easier had I owned this, which I don't.

* * *

 **III. Judoon Platoon Upon the Moon**

* * *

Being the buffer for an entire family of people different enough they could all get on one another's nerves without really trying made Martha Jones' life a bit hectic on some days, notably on a day like today, when her younger brother's 21st birthday party was going to be held that very evening, the birthday boy didn't want one to begin with, and her father's girlfriend just had to keep rubbing the wrong way a mother who was nowhere near blameless in the divorce to begin with. And because she wasn't at enough of a risk of running late to begin with, she'd had to run into a bubbly blonde who'd stopped her to ask for the time (8:49AM), had made her write that with a marker on her pink headband along with the day, and had basically vanished right after telling her to keep that in mind.

Oh, and the same bubbly blonde was also the second patient Mister Stoker had brought her student group to visit that morning, complete with pink pyjamas and headband _sans_ writing-by-Jones.

"Now then, Miss Tyler, a very good morning to you" Mister Stoker greeted the blonde. "How are you this morning?"

"Still a bit under the weather" Miss Tyler replied. "You?"

"Thrilled with the pleasures of teaching. Speaking of which-", the aged doctor turned to the group of medical students, "Miss Rose Tyler, admitted yesterday with a severe headache. Jones, why don't you see what you can find?" he asked Martha. "Amaze me."

Martha stepped forward, taking out her stethoscope. "That wasn't very clever running outside in this rain, was it?"

The blonde looked at her questioningly. "I did what?"

"On Chancery Street, this morning. "You came up to me and asked me to help with a prank."

"Wasn't me, unless I've somehow gained the ability to be in two places at one time." The blonde grinned. "I was here in bed. Ask the nurses."

"Well, you could have a sister or a cousin who looks like you."

Mister Stoker interfered with an "As time passes and I grow ever more infirm and weary, Miss Jones."

"Sorry" she said with a nervous laugh; she proceeded to listen to the patient's heart. There was nothing to catch her attention.

Martha bit her lip. "I don't know. Heart seems fine."

"Which rules out one sign that may or may not have anything to do with elevated intracranial blood pressure" Mister Stoker said, "and does not provide us any of the basic but essential information written down on the patient chart. Ow!" Said chart had just let quite the electric discharge.

"That happened to me this morning" Martha observed. Another student, Morgenstern, chimed in: "I had the same thing on the door handle." "And me in the lift", yet another student, Swales, added.

"That's only to be expected. There's a thunderstorm moving in and lightning is a form of static electricity, as was first proven by, anyone?"

But nobody volunteered, and it was the blonde who picked up the conversation. "Poor Ben Franklin, spending two whole days getting soaked and rope burns from the kite. He was miserable by the end of it. Now they've forgotten about him in med school."

"And you seem remarkably well documented on the circumstances, Miss Tyler" Mister Stoker said.

"Got to be, seeing as how old Ben drove me up the wall with his antics" Rose grumbled.

Mister Stoker gave her a patronizing smile. "Quite the experience, I'm sure. Moving on" and he turned to lead his students away, "I think perhaps a visit from psychiatric."

Rose suppressed another grin – in some ways, acting like the Doctor was _fun_. And she _had_ actually gone and met with Ben Franklin, after all. She'd also found out first-hand how the man's babbling could sometimes get almost as bad as the Doctor's on a good day. To be fair, it would have been even weirder to talk about overly curious space rhinos who wanted to test their brand new toy and possibly peek at the brains of human scientists as a side benefit. At least now, thanks to that incredible stroke of good luck, Rose knew how to identify and name the phenomenon which would occur today (the actual science behind it remained hopelessly beyond her grasp).

The young woman's smile faded. There was the hardest part of her life as a solo time traveller, she didn't have too much information to go on about what was and what wasn't possible, and couldn't risk acquiring that knowledge empirically. She was trying to catch up by reading and studying a good deal already, but she was nine centuries behind the Doctor there, and that meant she had to go with common sense and a very rudimentary time sense, a "gift" from whatever the Empress of the Racnoss had been trying to do, to go along with Rose's now golden eyes.

Yes, being the Doctor was a hard lifestyle.

The flashes of lightning and rumbling of thunder were turning more and more frequent. _It'll be any minute now_ Rose told herself, drawing back the curtain and dressing back up, hurrying when the exclamations and the shouts came about the rain going up. She went under the bed and readied herself, tucking in and covering her head – and sure enough, the lighting went almost blinding white and the hospital started to shake and tremble like in a minor earthquake.

 _Time to find out who's doing it this go around and why they took an entire hospital…_ Hopefully it wouldn't be the same species as it had been in 1752. Rose had touched a little on intergalactic law since she'd been brought to the Shadow Proclamation, and while she knew moving the hospital away from Earth for a bit wasn't technically illegal, endangering its population couldn't be done without a very good reason.

The quaking stopped, and cries of panic came as the people around them realised what was going on. Rose stepped from behind the curtain and watched silently as people broke down and started to run. There was nothing someone Rose's side could do to calm them down, nor were the two medical students who ran back in (Swales and Jones?) going to achieve anything by ordering people back to their beds.

The pair went to the windows, and Jones (?) made to open one of them, with the other shouting a panicked "Don't! We'll lose all the air!"

"They're not exactly airtight" Jones (?) said. "If the air was going to get sucked out it would have happened straightaway, but it didn't! So how come?"

"We should be on emergency power and the gravity's wrong, by the way" Rose made from where she stood, back to the wall. "Still, good thinking" she added for Jones (?), stepping towards her. "Nice to see one person keeping her head in all this mess."

"Who are you?" the student asked back. "And what do you know about this?"

"I'm Rose Tyler, and you are?"

"Martha Jones. Do you know what's going on?"

Rose gave her a cheeky smile. "No idea. Is there a balcony or a terrace close by we could go to?"

"By the patients' lounge, yeah."

"Right, I'll find my way."

"I'm coming with."

"Martha, don't!" her fellow student cried out.

"She's not wrong" Rose pointed out. "This really might not be safe."

"Someone needs to find out what's going on" Martha objected.

Rose gave her a serious look. "We might die."

She got a faint smile back. "We might not."

Rose smiled. "You're right. Come along, then!"

They walked out at a brisk pace, followed by the cries of "Don't go!" from the other student, which the young women forced themselves to ignore. They'd soon made their way to the balcony, whose door Rose opened before anybody could object. Then she made an inviting gesture.

"Welcome to the Moon, Martha Jones" Rose said with a smile.

Martha just stared outside, her face reflecting her wonder. "We've got air" she breathed, as the pair walked outside. "How does that work?"

"One way or another" Rose said simply. The two of them went to the railings, and Martha's gaze lost itself in the sight in front of her, but Rose's was searching.

"I've got a party tonight" Martha said, and Rose let her talk, knowing the other woman needed to get some grip on the reality of what was happening. "It's my brother's twenty-first" Martha went on. "My mother's gonna be really… really…"

Rose looped an arm around the other woman's shoulder. "It'll be fine."

"Yeah."

"Want to go back in?"

Martha separated herself from Rose. "No way. I mean, we could die any minute, but all the same… it's beautiful. How many people want to go to the Moon! And here we are."

"Stargazing in the Earthlight" Rose added.

Martha turned to her. "What do you think happened?"

"You're trying to make sense of this" Rose observed.

"Someone's going to have to" Martha said, "even if it doesn't change much there needs to be someone who at least tries."

"Good answer" Rose said, smiling. "So, what do _you_ think?"

"Extra-terrestrial" Martha said matter-of-factly. "It's got to be. I don't know – a few years ago, it would have sounded mad, but these days? That spaceship flying into Big Ben, Christmas, those Cybermen things…" Martha's face hardened. "I had a cousin. Adeola. She worked at Canary Wharf. She never came home."

"I'm sorry" Rose said, her voice thick. "I was there. So much loss…"

The medical student was getting a grip on herself. "I promise you, Miss Tyler, we will find a way out. If we can travel to the Moon, then we can travel back. There's got to be a way."

"I wouldn't worry too much about that one" Rose said, bending down and picking up a pebble.

"We can't give up!" Martha protested.

"And we're not giving up" Rose said calmly. "Right now, though, I'd like to find out how it is we've got air." She through the pebble as hard as she could; there was a crackling sound and a visual effect of shimmering, concentric blue circles the pebble went through, far closer to the hospital than Rose would have liked. "Force field, keeping the air in" she said.

"Some kind of hermetic bubble?"

"Something like that."

"Then all the air we've got is what's inside it" Martha said grimly. "What happens when it runs out?"

Rose frowned. "Hopefully whoever brought us here will have sent us back on the Earth before that really becomes an issue."

"But who brought us here?" Martha asked, desperation creeping in her voice. "And why?"

"We're about to find out" Rose said, pointing overhead, where three cylindrical spaceships passed overhead, causing the hospital to quake again. They went to a flat surface ahead of the balcony, lighting their thrusters and extruding landing struts, Martha staring at the spectacle all the while.

Rose pulled out a pair of binoculars from one of her pockets, Martha staring at her.

"How did these fit in there?"

"Bigger on the inside" Rose let trail, watching the opening landing ramps of the ships. Two columns of aliens in black spacesuits marched out from each, walking with military precision behind their platoon leaders.

"Judoon, of course…" she sighed, and she held out the binoculars for Martha. "Want a look?"

The medical student nodded nervously, and took in the approaching aliens. "What are they?" she breathed.

"Intergalactic police" Rose supplied. "And judge, jury and executioners."

"And executioners" Martha repeated. "Why would they bring us here?"

"Only reason they'd do that which would be legal is because they think a nonhuman criminal is hiding here" Rose explained, "they have no right to interfere with Earth humans in this time period, as we aren't advanced enough."

"Charming."

"The universe is a big place. I think the Judoon are going to make a catalogue of who is human and who isn't, and the last one's not going to be very long. The faster they do that, the better."

Martha put away the binoculars and stared at Rose. "Who are you? And how do you know so much about what's going on?"

"I'll answer that after we've done everything we can to get the Judoon to bring us back down to Earth before everybody here suffocates – if they don't have witnesses, they can foist it off as an accident. Now I'm going down to the lobby to talk to the Judoon and do what I can to expedite the process; you go and find the biggest honcho you can find, Mister Stoker or anyone else, and you get him to take charge and calm people down. If anybody attacks a Judoon, it's not going to be pretty."

Martha kept staring. "Seriously, who _are_ you?"

"And again with the wrong questions" Rose said a bit impatiently. "You wanted to help, you'll help if you do all you can to keep this cataloguing as smooth as possible. As to me, just accept I've got an idea of why we're here and what the Judoon want, I'll tell you why when this is over. Now come on, go! Save the questions for later!"

Rose shoo'd the other woman, who obeyed, walking away but not without a parting glare. Rose ignored her and made for the stairs, stopping herself from running to make sure she'd look calm and composed once she was with the Judoon.

Once in the lobby, Rose spotted one of the students from the morning, a tall blond boy, attempting to parlay, but in the wrong language, obviously – and getting pushed towards a door. A Judoon had taken off its face plating, revealing its rhino-like head, and talked with a gravelly voice. "Language assimilated. Designation, Earth English. You will be catalogued."

The Judoon flashed a red and silver cylinder in front of the young man's forehead, and a blue light gleamed on his forehead as a high-pitched whine made itself heard. "Category, human" the Judoon stated, grabbing the young man's hand and marking it with a black cross.

The Judoon fanned out and started testing the rest of the occupants of the lobby. Rose strode confidently, headed for the only one whose head stayed visible, offering herself to be scanned. The recent incidents had given her a couple of strange senses, but she wasn't genetically modified, was she? She was still a human girl born in London, right?

"Nonhuman."

"Well, that settles that question" Rose muttered.

"Species, unknown. Capture and interrogate."

"Now wait a minute, I know you're after a nonhuman, but it's not me, and if you let me- Oi!"

"Do not resist, or you will be executed" the Judoon warned her.

"You guys are the worst" Rose growled – and before the Judoon could grab her, she bolted, shouting "You can't hurt any of them if they're not helping me! Laws of the Shadow Proclamation!"

Red laser beams were her answer, and Rose barely managed to duck out of the way of three of them before she made it to a staircase. _From what I've seen of the Judoon, they'll stop chasing and methodically search all the floors, leaving troops behind as they march up_ Rose told herself. _Good thing I ran into them before, or I'd have been in a lousy position..._ She ran upstairs as fast as she could. _I've got to find Martha. Administrative was on the fifth floor, buys me a little time._

Rose burst into the halls of that floor, ignoring the panic around her and the people flocking in all sorts of directions, until she nearly bumped into Martha Jones.

"We've got to run!" the student shouted.

"What?"

'What' was a tall humanoid decked all in black leather and helmeted, running after Martha.

"Don't ask!" the student shouted. "Come on!" She grabbed Rose by the hand and took off.

"Where are we going?" Rose shouted.

"Save the questions for later!"

"I'm not trying to be clever, I'm looking for a way to save our asses!"

"Then you'd better come up with something fast! For now, run!"

They kept going, Rose thinking as fast as she could as they fled – at least until Martha had to ask.

"What are they?"

"No idea!" Rose said. "Only thing I can think of is trying to lock them up. Do you have storage somewhere that can only opened from the outside?"

"Morgue's secure, but we've got to take the stairs down to the basement" Martha offered.

"As if things couldn't get any better. Run! I'll catch you down there!" and Rose wrenched her hand from Martha's grip.

"What do you mean, you'll catch me down there?"

"Save the questions for later! Just get down there!"

Rose took off in her own direction, looking for an empty room just high enough for the TARDIS to materialize and found one in radiology. She locked down its door and focused, concentrating on the feeling of the living ship inside her head just like she had when trying to escape the Empress of the Racnoss with Donna, and was rewarded by reopening her eyes inside the TARDIS. She ran for the console.

"I need your help, old girl. Got to get to the morgue in one of the basements, but I don't know exactly where."

There was a humming in her head which reassured Rose and she felt guidance to input the coordinates she needed; she grinned.

"You're fantastic, old girl! Let's go!"

The TARDIS shook just once, and Rose made for the door as fast as she could, patting the wall before she exited and found herself down in a steel-plated room filled with cabinets.

"Lovely place" she muttered, looking around and picking up a tin of instruments, emptying it of its contents. "That one'll do."

She ran for the exit, opened it and stood there.

Not one minute later, Martha appeared at the other end of the hall, running for dear life, the humanoid in leather right behind her.

"Duck!" she shouted, and Martha flattened herself. Rose's projectile flew past her, bumping the helmet of the humanoid, which halted and looked in Rose's direction.

"Oi, creepy fella! What's with you and the leather fetish? Sadomasochist or just plain crazy?"

Whether it was the attack or the insults, Rose had got the thing's attention. It strode over Martha, not giving her a glance, and took straight after the blonde.

"Do it! Meet you in radiology!" Rose shouted before she ran back in the morgue, straight towards the TARDIS. She heard a heavy door slam behind her as she opened the ship's door, and ran in, locking it down.

"Back where we'd come from, old girl" she said, quickly fiddling with the console and sending them back to radiology. She programmed the TARDIS to return where it had been waiting on Earth, then walked out of the radio room where she'd been, flushed but nowhere near as tired as the Martha Jones who showed up.

"How did you get here?" she panted "You were locked in with that thing!"

"Save that question for later" Rose said, grinning. "Did you see Mister Stoker?"

"He's dead" Martha breathed. "Two of those things were holding him down and there was that woman, Missus Finnegan. She was drinking his blood."

Rose grimaced. "Well, on the plus side, can narrow down what we're dealing with now: something trying to make itself pass for human by drinking blood. Down!"

The pair scrambled to hide behind a water cooler, letting the other leather-clad humanoid stride past them.

"Lovely things" Rose said under her breath. "What did that Missus Finnegan order them when she sent them after you?"

"Capture and bring me back to her" Martha supplied.

"Well, that's helpful."

"I didn't have the time to ask twenty questions" Martha hissed.

"No, that's actually helpful" Rose replied, pulling Martha up. "We've got to get moving, find a way of locating that Missus Finnegan. Any idea where we could be safe for a bit with a computer connected to this hospital's network?"

"There's a staff lounge two levels up which could do" Martha said hesitantly.

"Hopefully we can get there without running into more of the Judoon or that thing. Lead the way."

Martha nodded and took off at a brisk pace. "Why are you trying so hard to avoid the Judoon? They're only checking for humans, it's safe for us."

"They checked you?"

Martha paused and showed her hand, which was marked by a black cross. "Yeah, they did, they checked me on my way down, and they don't force us to stay in one place. It only takes five seconds and you'll be rid of them."

"The being rid of bit might work the other way around for me" Rose grumbled.

"Why? You're not human?"

"Can we _not_ have that discussion now?"

"You can't be serious" Martha said – and then the two turned a corner and found herself face-to-face with three Judoon, who ignored Martha while one of them levelled a scanner at Rose's face.

"Nonhuman."

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Martha breathed.

"Tell me about it" Rose groused.

"Species: unknown" the Judoon continued. "Researched for escaping justice. Plea: guilty. Sentence…"

"Now's the time for my favourite word" Rose breathed as the Judoon made his statements.

"What word?" said Martha.

"Execution" said the Judoon, levelling his sidearm.

"Sorry mate, I prefer 'Run!' "

And she ran, taking off without Martha, who was pushed to the side by one Judoon and threatened with a "Do not cooperate with the criminal, or you'll be found guilty."

"Alright, alright" Martha said placatingly, hands raised. Not that she was going to follow the aliens' order. The moment they were away, she scrambled for a different flight of stairs and climbed up two floors, where Rose was probably headed.

And headed there she had been, except she was being hauled off by a familiar leather figure. The blonde just had the time to show the unmarked back of her hand and flash a wink at Martha before she disappeared past a corner.

"Tell me she isn't going to…" Martha said under her breath, taking after Rose and the leather humanoid, following them from a distance, all the way up to the MRI. "She is" Martha said to herself, incredulous. "Oh my God, she is… That girl is completely insane!"

The medical student swallowed with fright at the implications of what she'd just realized. Then she walked downstairs, forcing herself to do what she knew must be done and trying hard to not think too much about what she'd guessed would happen.

* * *

Rose was forcing herself to look more confident than she really felt. The plan she'd come up with was a desperate one, and it would really be touch-and-go even if Martha turned out to be as quick on the uptake as Rose expected her to be. And if not… Well, there were worse reasons to give up one's life than saving a hospital's worth of lives.

They were running out of time. Already some of the patients and staff Rose and her leather captor passed by were showing signs of dizziness, and a good few were panting, trying to inhale more of the ever-dwindling oxygen.

The leather thing pushed Rose into an MRI room; at the far end, an older-looking woman in a hospital gown had been working on some of the equipment, and looked thoroughly annoyed at having been interrupted when she turned to see what happened.

"What is the meaning of this?" the woman asked.

"I know you're not really Missus Finnegan" Rose breathed, held firmly in place by the leather creature. "You're the one, the one those Judoon things are after. I've come to warn you."

"Oh, then I thank you, dear, but that's not going to be a problem" she said with a benign smile, showing the marked back of her right hand. "I'm hidden."

"That's gotta be why they're increasing their scans" Rose said very fast. "That's what they said, that's why I've come, something about checking for a modular DNA splicing thingie, can't really remember the whole thing, but I know it's not good and that you have to do something about it, so that's what I came to tell you."

"Why?" the woman said coldly, looking Rose in the eyes. "Why would you tell me this?"

"Because you're not from this Earth" Rose said quickly, doing what she could to suppress her mounting panic. "Because I want to travel, see what it's like out there, see the stars and how very small we humans are, and when I saw those leather thingies, I knew there'd be a chance to be with you and maybe travel with you, go out there."

"Oh, I don't think so" the woman said, walking back to the MRI control room, where Rose heard her rummage through something. "You see, I'm not really keen on being discovered, and I'm not going to take any chance, which means I have to assimilate again. I need to be sure I appear human."

She walked out, holding a drinking straw. Rose gulped, realizing what that meant. "Oh, that's great, that's brilliant" she said in a shaking voice. "Is there- is there anything I can do to help?"

"Oh, yes, there is" Missus Finnegan said. "And I'm afraid it's going to hurt." She put the tip of the drinking straw on Rose's jugular. "If it can be any consolation, the dead don't tend to remember."

Rose did not need to feign terror when she shouted "No!", nor did she need to fake the agony of feeling herself drained. She tried to fight it, to buy herself more time; but the leather thing was too strong, the pain, too great, and with a whimpered "Doctor", Rose lost consciousness.

* * *

The Judoon burst into the MRI room, Martha on their heels, with a few medical necessities she quickly put down. The forceful entrance made Missus Finnegan jump away from Rose's body. The creature dared and accused them.

"Now look what you've done! This poor girl just died of fright!"

"Scan her" a Judoon rumbled, which another did. A blue light flashed on Rose's face. "Confirmation: deceased."

"But she can't be" Martha said, horrified. "Let me through, let me see her!"

"Stop" the lead Judoon ordered, taking hold of her with its four-fingered hand. "Case closed."

"But it was her…!" Martha said, pointing at the woman. "She killed Rose, she did it, she _murdered_ her!"

"Judoon have no authority over human crime" the creature stated.

"But she's not human" Martha protested.

"Oh, but I am, I've been catalogued" Missus Finnegan said, showing the back of her hand.

"But you're not! You assimilated Rose's blood! You…"

Martha grabbed a Judoon's scanner and pointed it at the old woman, activating it. The Judoon started to bark a protest, but turned to look at the light.

"Nonhuman" it said.

"What?" the old woman said, caught flat-footed.

"Confirm analysis" the lead Judoon ordered, and three scanners were pointed at the nonhuman.

Martha looked at her with bitter triumph. "She gave her life so they'd find you."

"Confirmed: Plasmavore" the lead Judoon declared. "Charged with the crime of murdering the princess of Patrival Regency Nine."

The Plasmavore's expression turned malevolent. "She deserved it" she hissed. "Those pink cheeks and those blond curls and that simpering voice. She was begging for the bite of a Plasmavore."

"Then you confess?"

"Confess? I'm proud of it. Slab!" she shouted the last word. "Kill them!"

The Judoon merely disintegrated the leather figure and turned back to the Plasmavore who stood still, her face full of hatred.

"Verdict, guilty. Sentence, execution."

And they executed her, the Plasmavore disintegrating when hit by three red beams. Once again, the lead Judoon spoke up: "Case closed. Our jurisdiction has ended. Judoon will evacuate."

Martha paid them no more attention. She had to do everything she could to resuscitate the small blonde alien who'd been so very brave; Martha really didn't want Rose Tyler to be the first for whom she'd call "time of death"...

* * *

Rose woke up in a hospital bed, in her own bedroom, at that, and judging by the light filtering through a window, she was back on Earth and it was evening. And a Martha Jones in casual clothes was seated by her bedside and smiled at her.

"You've been sleeping for three days" she said. "Nobody came to visit, so I thought I'd keep you a little company – there's nobody who _would_ have come, is there?"

"There could have been two if they'd known" Rose said.

"Family?"

"Friends."

Martha smiled again. "So now, you're answering questions."

"No life and death alien emergency, is there?" Rose countered, along with a tongue-in-teeth grin.

"Well, about that…" Martha said, looking embarrassed. "We had to remove your contacts to avoid problems with your eyes, and after they saw their colour they tested, and…"

Rose closed her eyes and sighed. "Let me guess. UNIT want to get me transferred over to them for questioning."

"They didn't say it like that, but yeah, basically…"

"Joy. I'm a guinea pig."

"Not really" Martha said. "They're not letting you leave, but they let people visit you."

"In a room that's probably bugged so they hear everything we say." Rose opened her eyes again and looked at the ceiling. "Those would be fake tiles?" she asked.

"I think" Martha replied, puzzled. "Is that important?"

Rose smiled at her. "Let's save the questions for later, alright?"

Martha hiccupped a laugh. "You're always saying that."

"I plan to keep saying that for a long time" Rose said, climbing up on her bed and pushing one of the tiles above it to the side. "That oughta do it."

The blonde girl climbed out of the bed and pushed it by a couple of metres.

"What are you doing?" Martha asked.

"Leaving" Rose said simply, standing right underneath the removed tile.

The door burst open, and a couple of soldiers ran in, guns raised. "Stop right there! Freeze!"

Rose raised her hand and gave the soldiers a sad look. "Pointing guns at a lonely girl in a nightie. UNIT's becoming a bit paranoid, mates."

"Silence, alien!" one of the soldiers barked. "Don't move!"

Rose didn't reply. She closed her eyes, and a whirring made itself heard where she stood; Martha gasped at the sight of a blue police box materializing out of thin air, one on which the soldiers opened fire briefly, but to no avail – the bullets disappeared in flashes of gold.

"Captain!" one of the soldiers shouted on his communications. "Something's happening! A blue box is appearing out of thin air!"

"Hold fire!" Martha could hear a female voice order from a comm. "It means she's with the Doctor!"

"Who?" Martha couldn't help asking. But the soldiers had no answer to give her, and with another few whirs then a shrill, fading sound, the Police box had vanished, along with Rose Tyler, as if neither had ever been there.

* * *

Two weeks later, Martha Jones was standing outside of her mother's house, taking a break after yet another argument about her father and his girlfriend. Martha didn't actually mind being her family's peacekeeper, but at times, it could be tiresome, notably after you'd gone a week playing twenty questions every night with UNIT, and tonight, Martha really needed a bit of fresh air.

She let out a heavy sigh – and stopped midway when she saw something which made her jump: there, at the corner of the street, dressed in street clothes and sporting a familiar pink headband, was the blonde nonhuman girl who'd saved the lives of everyone in the hospital. Martha felt a grin appear on her face, which was answered by what seemed to be a trademarked 'tongue-in-teeth grin by Rose Tyler'. Then the blonde girl disappeared, and Martha ran after her, following for four or five minutes and finding herself eventually in a disused back alley, with Rose standing ten metres away, in front of the blue Police box Martha had seen appear and then disappear.

Martha stopped at the end of the alley, some distance away from the girl with the golden eyes. "We went to the Moon, the other day" Martha said with nostalgia.

"Yep" the girl said, popping the 'p'. "Most of us even made it back. I'm glad I was fast enough that nobody died from lack of air. Just wish I could have done something for Adam Streete and Jonathan Stoker."

"Who?"

"The two who died" Rose said glumly. "Wish I could have done something for them."

"You saved over a thousand lives" Martha countered, "and never even asked for a 'thank you'. All that was going to happen was they were going to take you to a lab to analyse what you were, they tried to shoot you when you were running away from that, and then apparently they changed their minds after you'd done that runner. Called you a companion of the Doctor – whoever that is. I told them they were idiots if they thought someone as fantastic as you are was ever going to work for them after they treated you like they did, human or not."

Rose chuckled. "It's okay. I know I'm a bit of a freak – not that I mind that much, now that I've gotten used to the idea. Comes in useful when you're locked inside a room with a monster and you really need to get out."

"Yeah, I figured out that's how you managed. UNIT don't know you can do that and those Judoon things erased all the records of what happened; they think you're traveling with that alien Doctor, whoever he is."

Rose's expression grew sad. "Not anymore. He's gone. I'm on my own, now, and I'll be for a while."

Martha made a couple of tentative steps towards the blonde girl. "They said you used to be human, those UNIT people. Or at least, that's what they thought."

"I am. Just had something weird happen to me."

Rose looked to one of the walls, where the words "Bad Wolf" were spray painted over a "Vote Saxon" campaign add. She sighed. Martha followed her gaze.

"I'm surprised there's still people who don't like Saxon" she commented. "Man's been gaining enormous credit since Harriet Jones' health problems were exposed. He commandeered and led the troops that shot down the Christmas Star – that was the hostile alien ship that appeared over London last year, and-" Martha cut herself off, looking embarrassed. "But you already know that, don't you?"

"Didn't" Rose said. "That Christmas Star, what did it look like?"

"Like some sort of huge web, in the shape of a seven-point star" Martha described. "Then a huge spider thing flashed into the middle of it, and the army shot it down, under Saxon's orders. A few people caught pictures of that beast before it went down, looked like a complete nightmare."

Rose didn't reply, but Martha could see she looked sad.

"Anyway, enough with Harold Saxon. I just wanted to know if you're going to be alright running away out there on your own. I know you've got a whole galaxy you can get to, but what's the point of traveling if you do it alone?"

Rose looked at Martha and flashed her an impish smile. "Was that a poorly disguised attempt at asking 'Can I come travel with you', Martha Jones?"

"I can't" Martha said. "You've caught me, I'd really love to, but I've got exams coming, side work to pay the rent, and I've got my family here. I need to stay there for them. As much as I'd like to come on that spaceship of yours, even if it'd be a little cramped inside, I can't."

Rose gave her another impish smile. "Did I mention, it can travel in time?"

Martha had a mocking laugh. "Oh, come on, aliens and all that jizz, I know it exists, but time travel? That's impossible!"

"I can prove it" Rose said with a challenging look. "Care to bet?"

"What's the stakes?"

"Chips."

Martha blinked. "You're an alien that can travel across the galaxy and pretends she can travel through time, and you want to bet for chips."

"Chips are good. You're taking that action?"

"Done" Martha said, slapping hands with Rose.

"I'll be right back."

The blonde girl stepped inside the box, and seconds later, it began to whir and to fade, leaving Martha on her own in the back alley.

She laughed mirthlessly. "Way to go, Martha. Chance of a lifetime and you blew it."

And then the box reappeared, and Rose stepped out, pink headband off her head and in hand. She walked the few metres separating her from Martha and held it out with a tongue-touched grin. Martha took it and gaped when she saw the time and date in her own handwriting.

"But that was more than two weeks ago!"

"Two minutes ago for me" Rose said smugly.

"Oh. But wait a minute! If you can go back in time, why didn't you tell me to stay away from the hospital?"

Rose's look turned stern. "That's established events you can remember. Try to change that, end of the world. I tried; believe me, I know."

"Alright" Martha said, looking chastened. She walked up to the blue, wooden box. "And that's your time and space ship."

"Not too far off" Rose said. "She's called the TARDIS – time and relative dimension in space."

"She's made of wood" Martha said as she tentatively touched it. "But I've seen it repeal bullets. Still, looks cramped."

"Go inside and have a look, then" Rose said, and with a tongue-in-teeth grin she opened the door, letting Martha step inside.

The medical student stood transfixed, looking around her. Then she regained motion. "No, no, no" she said as she ran outside and looked again at the TARDIS' exterior. "But it's just a box!" Rose heard her heels step to the side. "But it's huge! How's it do that?" She knocked outside. "It's wood! It's like a box, with that room just rammed in! It's… bigger on the inside!"

"Is it?" Rose said teasingly. "I hadn't noticed!" She shut the door, and moved over to the instruments. "Alright then. Let's get going, I still need to improve my driving of the old girl."

"You talk like it's alive!"

" _She's_ alive" Rose half-answered, half-corrected, working on her instruments. "She's got a wardrobe and shoes, too, which is a good thing because you're not coming along wearing those heels."

"What's wrong with my shoes?" Martha said, looking down at them.

"Not great for running and, and you can trust me on this, time travel includes a lot of running."

"Like we did on the Moon? My feet were killing me when I went to my brother's birthday party that night."

"That's why I brought up the heels" Rose said impishly. Then her expression grew more serious. "One trip. As a thank you for saving me back at the hospital."

"That's okay."

"I can't promise it'll be completely safe."

"I know."

"So, with that in mind, you ready?"

Martha grinned nervously. "No."

"Grab hold of something, and off we go!"

The TARDIS obliged, providing a ride that was definitely on the bumpier side, forcing Martha and Rose to keep firm holds.

"Welcome on board, Miss Jones!" Rose said with a grin. "Destination: everywhere! Starting with a place where you can get me chips!"

* * *

 **A/N:** Thanks to **TheDoctorMulder** for taking the time to review. Hopefully others liked what I did with that particular bit of story; plus, I loved that episode.

Enter Martha Jones. Obviously, her relationship with Rose is going to be different from the one she had in canon with the Doctor, but Martha's arc is leaving me in a bit of a pickle, called _Human Nature_. I don't technically need to go through it; question is more whether it makes sense to try and adapt that story or if I should just discard it.


	5. IV - Hippocratic Oath

**A/N:** Anybody got a bit of loose change to help me buy the BBC? No? Ah well, no harm in asking. Until then, not mine.

Don't worry about the lack of Shakespeare. We will visit him, just not at this time.

* * *

 **IV. Hippocratic Oath**

* * *

The TARDIS gave a final lurch, sending Martha to crash to the floor.

"Blimey, shouldn't you take a test to fly this thing?" she groused.

"No idea, but if there exists one, I'd fail it" Rose replied with her tongue-in-teeth grin. She walked over to Martha and took her arm, helping her get up. "Come on. Wardrobe."

"Am I still saving questions for later?"

"That depends. What do you want to know?"

"Where are we?"

"I'm not saying."

"When are we?"

"I'm not saying."

"Come on, you're pulling my leg!"

Rose grinned. "I let the TARDIS choose. Asked her to find something interesting for a medical student."

"But how am I even going to dress properly for the time and place?" Martha asked with the slightest hint of panic.

"You didn't bring clothes anyway."

"Don't we have to fit in?"

"Not really."

"Then I'm keeping my heels."

Rose levelled a flat look at Martha.

"Oh, come on! We're going to see something interesting for a medical student, not run everywhere and save the world!"

"Your feet's funeral" Rose said tartly. Then a grin returned as she flitted to the door, opening it for Martha. "After you, Miss Jones" she said with an inviting gesture.

Martha stepped in front of the door, and then turned back to Rose, looking underwhelmed. "A vacation resort in warm seas, that's all you've got?"

"Step outside and look around" Rose said, grinning. "And mind your step, too."

Martha walked out of the TARDIS with mixed feelings. Sure, she could do with a break from all the stress of her studies and from her family, but what was the point of having a space and time travelling ship if all you were going to do with them was catch a bit of fresh air?

"So, what do you think?" Rose asked. The blonde girl had quietly stepped outside and locked the TARDIS behind her.

"Well, I suppose it's nice" Martha made with a little frown. She kept looking around, sheltering her eyes from the bright sun with one hand. "Very rural, with the vineyards, the olive plantations and the wheat fields, the little white village down below, and those little fishing boats, and that restored temple on the hill. No concrete to be seen, a couple of nice biremes in harbour along with smaller boats, some naked men in the fields, a group of folks in togas walking along a footpath…"

Martha snapped back to Rose suddenly. "Togas? Biremes? Wooden boats?"

"Yep."

"Not a single car to be seen either…" Martha breathed, looking around again. "There's a couple of old carts over there, but they're being dragged by – naked men?"

The medical student turned back to Rose. "Where are we?"

"Not asking when?" Rose teased.

"Where and when, then?"

"The Island of Kos, in the Dodecanese, in the year 380BC" Rose supplied. "You tell me if this rings any bells for a medical student."

"Island of Kos… Island of Kos…" Martha's eyes opened wide. "No way. This is where Hippocrates lived and taught! Then could he be…?"

Rose grinned. "Only one way to find out!"

"This is brilliant!" Martha made to take off – and stopped. She looked at Rose and smiled mischievously. "On the downside, no chips."

Rose laughed. "Get out of here!"

"I'm already out!"

"Then walk down that road! Hippocrates is waiting!"

"And he's going to love my heels!"

Rose laughed as Martha made her way down the gravelly path leading to the town below, her footsteps rather ungainly. The medical student didn't make it very far before returning to where Rose was waiting.

"Convinced?"

"No, just remembered how being a black woman who can't speak the local language in Antiquity is going to be interpreted."

Rose smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry about that. The TARDIS will translate everything for you – you'll hear and speak English, but it'll really be Ancient Greek or whatever local dialect these people speak."

"Really?"

"Don't worry about the slavery thing either. Dressed as you are, it'll be obvious to people you're a foreigner."

"Doesn't help" Martha said worriedly.

"It'll be fine" Rose replied with a smile. "Just do like me, walk like you own the place."

Martha looked at her dubiously.

"Oh, I'll lead the way" Rose finally said. "Come on. Hippocrates awaits!"

* * *

True to her word, Rose behaved like she belonged when they'd made it down to the village, not hesitating in the slightest as she spoke to the first person they ran across, a red-faced man with curly black hair in a toga.

"Hello" she said. "I'm Rose Tyler, and this is Martha Jones", and Martha smiled shyly at the man. "We're looking for Hippocrates."

"Up the hill once again" the man replied gruffly. "Every now and then he returns to the Temple of Asclepios. Never quite works."

"Why, is there something wrong at this temple?"

The man snorted. "You're clearly a foreigner. It houses a monster nobody ever managed to put down – not for lack of trying."

Martha and Rose exchanged surprised looks. "What sort of monster?" Rose asked.

The man shrugged. "How would I know? Only heroes try to take that beast down, and I ain't a hero, am I?"

"But Hippocrates would know what the monster looks like, wouldn't he?" Martha chimed in.

The man glared at them. "Look, ladies, if the old man knows what the monster's like, he's not saying. And you _can't_ help. Not even the strongest warriors Athens, Sparta and Macedonia have to offer were able to live to tell about it. They all run, and they all die."

"Good thing we're not warriors" Rose said a bit nonchalantly. "Just came to meet with Hippocrates."

"Wait until he's come back from the hill, then" the man grunted, and he walked away.

Martha looked at Rose. "Is it always like this with you? Travel anywhere, find something's horribly wrong, try to fix it with a bit of luck and an insane plan?"

"I'll have you know I've had very quiet trips" Rose protested.

"Somehow I have doubts" Martha grumbled. "So, up the hill?"

"Yep" Rose said, popping the 'p'.

"Can we get there by TARDIS?"

Rose smiled mischievously. "Problem with the heels?"

"Not very good for trekking" Martha admitted with a grimace.

"This would be when I say 'I told you so', then."

Martha groaned. "Yes, you told me so. Now can you please get the TARDIS?"

Rose grinned and gestured towards a shadowed passage. "Your transportation will be this way."

* * *

To Martha's surprise, it was night when the TARDIS rematerialized on the hill – an unexpectedly chilly night at that.

"Why did you time travel?" she asked loudly. "Is this still 380BC?"

"Still the same day we arrived, just the evening" Rose replied, looking around. "I don't know why the old girl made that change in time."

"Well, we can go back in and change back" Martha groused. "I want to meet Hippocrates, not sneak around a monster's lair at night."

"You don't have to come along if you don't want to" Rose offered. "This _is_ going to be dangerous."

"It can wait until tonight. Let's go back earlier today."

"We can't."

"Why can't we?"

A low growl made itself heard, coming from the darkened temple up the hill.

"Because now whatever's living there knows we weren't here this afternoon" Rose muttered.

"Oh, that's brilliant" Martha groaned, and Rose made a shushing gesture. Martha glared at her – and then the glare turned into a frightened look. "Whatever is inside-" she whispered, and Rose nodded. "What's the plan, then?" the medical student asked.

"Meet Hippocrates" Rose said, dragging Martha back inside the TARDIS.

"Good plan."

The TARDIS doors closed behind them, and Rose went to set coordinates for the next day while Martha recovered from the scare. "How do you stay so calm?" she breathed.

"Habit" Rose replied, frowning with concentration.

"Well, your lifestyle's a little scary, Miss Tyler" Martha commented. "You do this on your own?"

Rose looked up from the console. "Most of the time now the Doctor's gone" she said. "You're actually the first person I'm taking with me without a specific goal in mind, just to travel."

"Isn't that a bit too dangerous?"

"Oi, I'm not helpless!" Rose snapped.

"You also nearly died two weeks ago when we were at the hospital" Martha remarked.

"Been a bit more than two weeks for me" Rose mumbled.

"Right, time traveller. How long has it been for you?"

"Don't really know. Maybe a year."

Martha levelled a flat look at Rose. "A year."

"Maybe. I've been busy, I haven't really been keeping track."

"And all of a sudden, after a year, you went and told yourself 'hey, maybe I should visit Martha Jones and say thank you'."

"The last time I made a return visit to someone who'd been in one of those situations with me she was used as a hostage to force me to cooperate with homicidal maniacs" Rose said dourly. "I'd have come back eventually because of that circular paradox thing you mentioned back at the hospital, but I didn't mean to before I knew I could do this safely for whoever I brought along on a trip."

Martha deflated visibly. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh" Rose said sourly.

"I'm sorry."

Rose waved the apology away. "Don't be. You were pretty spot-on when you talked about someone having to take charge and trying to do something during that situation on the Moon. It's just that being that someone means being responsible for whoever is with you, because they're going to be out of their depth. I know I still am."

"How long have you been traveling through time and space that way?" Martha asked.

"About three years" Rose answered. "One on my own, and before that two with the Doctor."

"Doctor who?"

"Just the Doctor."

"Another companion of yours?"

Rose snickered. "Oh, he'd have been so ruffled by that. No, I was his companion, he was doing the heavy lifting back then."

"What happened to him?"

"Trapped in a parallel universe."

"And can't he come back?"

Rose smiled sadly. "It's not that simple. It's very dangerous, really – got to find a way of doing that without risking to destroy both our universes. And he's got nine hundred years of study on me – that's if he didn't lie and actually remembers his age."

Martha looked gobsmacked. " _Nine hundred years old?_ "

"He's not human."

"Oh, right. Should have guessed, seeing as how you aren't either."

Rose glared at her. "I was a human born in London, thank you very much."

"Sorry" Martha said with embarrassment. "Didn't mean anything by it – it's just-"

"Don't worry, I'd think the same too in your place" Rose said. "I just don't like to be reminded about how I've changed."

"But you changed in a good way, didn't you?"

Rose grimaced. "I like that even less. Don't want to start thinking myself superior to other humans because I was so desperate to be with a man I got my biology rewritten in the process."

"You're thinking about those rhinos' scanners" Martha said.

"Been doing a bit of testing since" Rose replied with another grimace. "Got a few bits and pieces not really meant to exist in normal DNA."

"That's what UNIT want to find out about you, I suppose."

"Something like that" Rose said evasively. "And now that the Doctor is gone, they'll probably want the TARDIS" she added grimly.

"Machine that can travel anywhere in space and time. Can't figure out why they'd want it" Martha said sarcastically.

"Well, I'm not leaving the old girl in just anybody's hands" Rose said. "She's having a hard enough time already missing the Doctor, don't want her to feel completely alone."

"There may be a bit of company to find for her" Martha observed, and Rose's eyes narrowed.

"What do you mean?"

"You said your lost friend's about nine hundred years old, right?" Rose nodded, and Martha continued. "You also said you'd travelled with him for a couple of years before he was lost, right?"

Rose nodded again. "He did."

"And before you, were there other people who travelled with him in the TARDIS whom she'd remember?"

Rose looked at Martha, dumbfounded. Then she grinned. "Martha Jones, you are brilliant!"

Martha returned an embarrassed look. "Just seemed to make sense."

"It does" Rose confirmed. "I just wish I knew more than one of the Doctor's old companions. Oh, and she's going to bite my head off and I'll totally have deserved it." Rose's grin vanished. "Poor Sarah Jane" she said glumly. "She probably has no idea the Doctor is lost."

"You were a bit preoccupied" Martha offered. "If you're living the same life your Doctor did, she'll understand."

"She's still going to bite my head off" Rose mumbled.

"Why would she?"

"Why aren't we going to see Hippocrates?" Rose deflected.

"Because you're not piloting the TARDIS?"

"Good point." Rose entered a renewed flurry of activity, and when the familiar whirring made itself heard, Martha hastened for something to cling onto.

* * *

It was morning again (and two minutes later) when Martha and Rose left the TARDIS and returned to seek the ancient healer. They were directed to a sturdy stone house with small windows and told to wait in the courtyard while the wise man treated the master of the house.

A woman and her two daughters were in the courtyard, standing in the shade. The woman was lecturing her two daughters about something; the oldest, in her preteen years, listened with good grace, but the youngest, who had to be six or seven, jumped at the chance for a distraction and pointed at the two newcomers, which prompted the woman to beckon to Rose.

"Don't stay there in the sunlight" she said in lieu of greetings. "You have such fair complexion it would be a shame to mar it."

Rose sent back a small smile and approached, followed by an annoyed Martha. The woman greeted them with a smile. "It is rare to see two foreigners from different peoples walking together" she said, "and in such strange attire too. Does one of you serve the other?"

"We're both free women, thank you" Martha said a bit harshly, prompting an apologetic gesture from the woman.

"I meant no offense. It's just that we don't see too many foreigners here on Kos."

"No offense taken" Rose reassured the woman. "I'm Rose Tyler, and this is Martha Jones."

"Strange names, but they sound similar" the woman observed. "I am Agathe, and these are my daughters Aglaia and Euphrosyne." The older girl bowed shyly in greeting, but the younger one just stared at Rose.

"You look weird" she said.

"Euphrosyne" the mother said sharply.

"But it's true, she's weird!" the child protested, turning to her mother. "She walks like a knight, but she's a woman!"

"She's a sort of knight" Martha offered.

"Not sort-of. I have been properly knighted" Rose corrected with a grin, and the little girl cheered.

"I knew it, mother! There _are_ female knights!"

"Next she's going to say there must be female healers" the older daughter muttered.

Martha frowned at her. "There are where I live" she said. "In fact I'm about to pass my exams and swear the Hippocratic oath."

"The master only takes men as his students" Agathe countered, "as it should be. He wouldn't let you swear an oath to him as a healer."

Martha glared at the woman, but Rose cut in, getting hold of the medical student's shoulders and turning her to face her. "Martha" she said, hoping that the TARDIS wouldn't translate her words, "this isn't twenty-first century England, remember? Different times, different customs."

"The little girl knows better than to accept them" Martha protested. "And her mother and sister should too – we can enlighten them. Make a small difference."

Rose shook her head. "We're strangers to them. They're not going to accept what we'd have to say, they'll just look at it like foreigners trying to force their views on them."

"So we're supposed to just ignore such blatant inequalities and smile and look pretty with them?"

"We have to if we want to get anywhere."

"See? You said to act like we belong, now you say to blend in! How am I supposed to know when to do which?"

Rose sighed. "I don't like this situation either, Martha, but we're not going to get to talk to Hippocrates if we rile up Agathe and get ourselves thrown out, and that's what's going to happen if we say things that won't sit well with them."

Martha scowled, but didn't reply. It was Agathe who picked the conversation up. "You speak a strange language" she remarked.

"We come from a very distant land" Rose explained. "Our ways are very different."

"Like having women healers?"

"We live in a land where women can do anything they like" Martha retorted.

"I bet a female knight would beat the dragon!" Euphrosyne said enthusiastically, and Martha's expression turned queasy.

"That was a dragon in the temple on the hill?"

"That's what the legend says" Agathe offered. "Nobody's confirmed it. All the knights who entered the Temple of Asclepios either died or fled in terror, and none of those who fled ever said what they faced."

"Master Hippocrates knows" the older daughter pointed out.

"Yes, Aglaia, but he doesn't talk about it."

"Maybe he knows why the dragon is here" Aglaia added, and her little sister grinned.

"Are you like a dragon?" the child asked Rose.

"Who knows?" Rose replied with a small smile. She didn't go further – the noise of a door opening distracted the women in the courtyard, through which stepped a tall, aged man in a toga, with vivacious black eyes, curled white hair and a pristine beard.

"Master Hippocrates!" little Euphrosyne called enthusiastically at him. "There's a knight from a strange land here!" The child pointed at Rose, who smiled.

"As it happens, yes." She curtsied. "I am Dame Rose Tyler of the Powell Estates, and this is my friend Martha Jones."

"Your friend looks surprised to see me" Hippocrates observed, and Martha was indeed doing a very good impression of a fish outside its bowl.

"Your reputation travels far and wide, Master" Rose said with a smile. "Please don't mind my friend's reaction – she is a student of medicine, meeting you is a huge event for her."

Martha looked down awkwardly, but she was spared from stammering a reply by the little girl.

"Master, why don't you ask the lady knight to go and beat the dragon?"

"Euphrosyne, be silent!" the girl's mother hissed.

Two more men stepped into the courtyard, also wrapped in togas, both of them carrying a satchel. "Where next, Master?"

"Euripides', I think" Hippocrates replied, then he turned to the other man. "I would have taken your oath in the Temple of Asclepios, but in the circumstances…"

"I understand" the man replied gravely. "I will follow you in your next travels, then, and wait until we find a shrine to the Healer."

"But you have a knight here!" the little girl said, and then she cringed away from her mother's raised arm with a little squeak.

"Don't" Rose said, and the woman stopped. "Your child is right, I should try and help if I can."

"You are a woman" the first student scoffed. "What could you hope to accomplish when the best men of Hellas failed to kill the beast?"

"Find out why there's a dragon in the temple in the first place" Rose replied calmly. "Then see what I can do to lead it elsewhere. I'm not going to kill it unless there really, really isn't another option."

Hippocrates looked Rose over, a weary expression on his ancient face. "I think you and I should discuss this matter alone, Dame Rose Tyler."

"Master, why would you even bother?" the first student objected.

" _Alone_ " the old man repeated sternly.

"I'd ask for my squire to be present" Rose countered, nodding in a surprised Martha's direction.

"Your squire?" Hippocrates asked.

"In the lands I come from, a squire is a knight's apprentice, traveling with their master and learning from them."

"Not unlike my students" the man said gruffly. "This squire of yours, you trust her?"

"With my life" Rose responded without hesitation.

Hippocrates turned to Martha, hard beetle-black eyes assessing the medical student, who returned the look with as much composure as she could muster, determined to look worthy of the healer's attention.

Eventually, Hippocrates' eyes returned to Rose. "You say she is a student a medicine, but when I look at your friend, I see a young warrior, not yet aware of her strength."

"She is strong" Rose agreed, surprising Martha again, "stronger than she gives herself credit for, I think. But it doesn't mean she's not a healer. Some of them actually take the field along with the soldiers, ready to take care of the wounded in the middle of the fighting."

"A strange practice" the wise man commented with a frown. "Medical science should never be used to harm, and the battlefield would offer many temptations."

"We swear an oath to never use our craft to cause harm" Martha breathed in.

Hippocrates turned to her, bristling eyebrows raised. "You do?"

"Every doctor does."

"Who does?"

"The word may not exist in that time" Rose chimed in.

Hippocrates turned back to the blonde woman and sent her a sharp look. "'In that time'" he repeated. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Can we talk about this elsewhere?"

Hippocrates didn't reply immediately. He studied the two women with narrowed eyes for a moment, eventually turning to look at his students, one of them still fuming and the other wary.

"Acestes, Eutropios" the old man said, "you will take us down to Mikkos'. I shall require sustenance there, and so will Dame Tyler and her squire."

The fuming student turned scandalized, joined in that by the woman and her oldest daughter. "This is terribly improper!" the younger man protested.

"What's improper?" Martha asked.

"A man eating in the same place and at the same time as women" Hippocrates explained.

It was Martha's turn to look scandalized. "So what? Are we expected to eat in the kitchens or in a courtyard?"

The fuming student glared at Rose. "Teach your squire her place!"

"Learn yours, Acestes" Hippocrates said sharply. "I said I would eat with this knight and her squire. The choice for that impropriety is mine, not yours."

"And that impropriety would be paid for with my drachmae!" the man replied hotly. "And neither is Euripides paying for this- this- disgrace to the Gods – you aren't, are you?"

"The master must have a reason to think this would not offend the Gods" the other student replied calmly, "and he doesn't have to explain himself to us."

"Preposterous! Rules ordained by the Gods apply to all humans!"

"And do those rules apply to beings that are more than human?" Martha said hotly.

Rose winced. "Martha, please, don't" she said in English.

"We're going to keep having the same problem if you don't do something about it" Martha countered.

"I don't like this" Rose mumbled, "taking advantage of being different."

"You've got to, or we'll never get to the bottom of the matter."

Rose sent Martha another upset look, then took out a small receptacle from her pockets.

"What is she doing now?" Acestes grunted.

"I'll show you in a bit" Rose replied, turning her back to the men and bringing her hand to one of her eyes.

"Is she what I suspect?" Hippocrates ventured.

"You'll see for yourself, Master" Martha replied confidently, and Rose turned, eyes no longer covered, their golden irises visible to all, eliciting gasps from everyone but from Hippocrates.

"You are not entirely human" he said matter-of-factly.

"I don't really like to show it" Rose groused.

"Hubris does attract the ire of the Gods" the old man said sagely. "I suppose there are no more objections, then" he said, turning to his students.

"None, Master" Acestes replied sullenly, and then he bowed his head to Rose. "I ask for your forgiveness; I did not know your true nature."

"You are forgiven" the young woman said. "As your master said, the fewer people know, the better."

"This also means we cannot pursue our conversation in a public place" Hippocrates remarked. "For I would know a little more about who and what you are before I let you inside the Temple of Asclepios."

Rose smiled kindly. "I understand. Where shall we meet, then?"

"At sun's height, on the side of the Temple where the sun sets" Hippocrates replied. "Come without your squire" he added, and Martha visibly deflated. The ancient man turned to her. "This is me teaching you, aspiring warrior-healer, and I would not normally teach a woman."

"But what are you going to teach me if you won't let me near you, Master?" Martha asked, trying to hide her disappointment.

"Patience and humility" Hippocrates said simply. "If you are a companion of the divine, there may be no crafts for me to teach you. But the practise of medicine does not simply rely on knowledge. To be a worthy healer, you must embrace the lifestyle. That is the reason I require an oath of those I would take along with me to pass my knowledge on. Nothing good comes from a man with a full head but no heart."

"I understand that, Master" Martha said quietly.

"You only understand logically" Hippocrates chided. "Trials have no worth as an intellectual exercise. They only have meaning for the one who went through them."

Martha nodded. "What should I do, then, master?"

"This life of ours, I've heard you scorn earlier, because it's not yours and does not follow your land's ethics. But that is the wont of a stranger in foreign lands – accept the local practices and abide by them. So this is what you will do, if only for a short span: while I meet with your master and we address our concerns, you will stay here, and live the life you scorned."

Martha looked at Rose, who shook her head. "I'm sorry, I can't change his mind" the blonde woman said in English, "and it wouldn't help if I tried. But there's something really useful you could do here."

"Like what?" Martha asked with a hint of sarcasm.

"Folk tales" Rose said simply.

"You're not serious."

Rose grinned. "I am, though. Never underestimate the uses of the domestic approach."

"This is _not_ funny" Martha replied with a scowl.

"I'm not trying to be funny, that's actually useful" Rose countered. "Educated people easily dismiss what the smaller folks know, but they know quite a bit educated people don't."

"Most of which is useless or wrong" Martha shot back. "I'd know, I've wasted countless hours correcting Leo and his mates. And you're one to talk anyway, with all your knowledge about time and space and all sorts of strange species and sciences."

Rose smiled sadly. "I grew up in the Estates with a single mother and never got my A-levels; you're near graduation to become an actual doctor. Trust me, you've got a much better education than I do – and let's not get started on just how much the Doctor knew, being nine hundred and a genius. Still knew bits and pieces he didn't or knew where to learn bits and pieces that saved our lives several times, and he knew and appreciated that. Trust me, this really could be useful."

"If you say so" Martha said dubiously.

"I do, and I've got a feeling I'll want to hear those folk tales the girls seem to know once Hippocrates has said his piece. The more you can find out, the better."

"Like how a dragon would somehow be a human in disguise?" Martha replied sarcastically.

Rose arched her eyebrows. "Why not? I've faced a parasite that transforms its host into a werewolf when the moon shines – that's how I got knighted by Queen Victoria."

"You have _got_ to be kidding me."

"Lupine wavelength haemovariform – that's the scientific name – and let me tell you, Victoria was not amused."

Martha groaned. "Alright, alright, I'll stay behind. I have a feeling I'll go insane if I stick with you anyway."

"It _is_ a strange life" Rose acquiesced. "But it's worth the travels, don't you think?"

Martha had to admit that she agreed, ancient customs or no ancient customs, dragon or no dragon.

* * *

Rose didn't go directly up the hill; she made a side-trip to the TARDIS first to recover odds and ends that might prove useful, starting with a fire extinguisher small enough to fit through her pockets' opening. Then she steeled herself for a task she never thought she'd have to face: set up an emergency program in case she didn't make it and Martha found herself stuck in ancient Greece without a pilot. It took her longer than she thought it would – finding the right words for something that will be played after you're dead was not coming naturally to her. In the end, she settled on a wording not so distant from the one she'd heard the Doctor speak, with less emphasis on the gravity of the threat she'd be facing.

It was quite hot by the time Rose made it to the rendezvous with Hippocrates. The aged man was on his own, as he'd promised, sitting on a large stone and gazing at the temple gleaming at the top of the hill. His only acknowledgment of Rose's presence was to gesture for her to sit next to him, which the young woman did. The two just sat in silence for a while, Rose's gaze following Hippocrates', until the old man finally decided to speak.

"You said you weren't going to kill the dragon inside this sacred place unless you have no other option" he said, going straight to the point. "What do you intend to do, then?"

"Find out what it looks like, what it does, how it reacts to someone approaching unarmed for starters" Rose replied. "Not carrying weapons makes creatures and people feel a lot less threatened by your presence."

"A knight without a mount and without weapons" Hippocrates mused.

"Well, I _have_ a mount" Rose said, then she cringed. "Technically. She'll probably kill me if she realizes I've made that analogy. Or move the swimming pool inside my bedroom – she's quite creative when she feels the need to be vindictive."

"You are rambling" Hippocrates chided.

Rose blushed. "Yeah, I find myself doing that more and more these days – I live a lonely lifestyle, gets one used to thinking out loud."

"And why do you intend to confront a dragon if you're not bearing a weapon, then, woman-knight?"

Rose turned to find the old man's eyes bearing on her. She wasn't intimidated, however; she'd been stared down by far more threatening. "I don't really like how people always assume that in order to do good you have to be ready to fight. I had this friend, this wonderful friend, named the Doctor – that's a modern name for a healer. He faced all kinds of terrifying threats, fresh off the worst war in the entire universe, and he almost never carried a weapon. He gave everyone and everything a chance, and only fought when there was absolutely nothing else left to do. I'm following his example. I'm not going to hurt whatever's inside unless I have to."

The old man looked at Rose appraisingly, while she returned the look, her face expressing utmost determination.

Then Hippocrates smiled faintly. "I dare not hope. But I think I can, at least, tell you."

"Then I will listen" Rose replied. "What is it I need to know?"

The ancient man let out a weary sigh. "That it is not just a dragon who is lying in wait inside the Temple. It is my own daughter."

Rose's face fell. "Your daughter."

"Yes. Cursed, punished for a slight I know little about, except that on the day she was cursed, a man was seen walking away from the Temple, but no one knows who he was, and no one ever found him again. Now she lies there, trapped inside a monstrous form. Every now and then knights will come up the hill and enter the Temple, but no good ever comes from it."

"And how long has that been going on?" Rose asked.

"Longer than most men's lives" Hippocrates replied. "I come back here on my travels every now and then, hoping that something will have changed, that someone will be capable of helping my child. But no one ever has."

Silence fell again for an instant as Rose pondered the situation. Eventually she spoke up again. "I'll have a question for you – but please don't be offended by it. Does your daughter… shed any scales?"

Hippocrates looked at her with puzzlement. "I have no idea. Why would that matter?"

"Because if I can scrape some genetic material off one I might find an idea of what happened to your daughter."

"Scrape some _what_?"

Rose returned a sheepish look. "Sorry, forgot sciences are nowhere near this advanced in your time."

Hippocrates' eyes narrowed. "So you claim you are not from this time."

Rose looked even more embarrassed. "I'm so sorry, I should never have said that."

"On the contrary, it says a lot about why you might succeed where others have not" Hippocrates replied. "A knight, but female; a defender of those in need, but with no weapons; more than human, but noble and humble; traveling in time, but respectful of those she encounters in other periods. If I were to chance a guess, I would call you a descendant of Chronos; a Time Lady."

"I'm not a Time Lady" Rose replied quietly, looking down.

"But you wear the mantle of one" Hippocrates countered.

Rose sighed. "I didn't mean to. But there aren't any Time Lords left. I knew the last one, and he's trapped in a different reality. They're all gone."

"Their role is being filled. There is you, and you are training a squire."

"Not really" Rose said. "I took Martha along as a thank-you for saving me a year back, and I didn't mean to take her before a good while still, when I'd be more confident I could protect her from the kind of dangers a time traveller encounters. And I don't mean to keep her about."

"But you've already changed her" Hippocrates observed. "Made her wise to the existence of a much larger reality, teaching her to adjust to its existence. You have started her on a path where she can realize her potential – and that potential is high. She's resilient, this young woman, and determined – and a little bit stubborn, truth be told, but she will learn. And you should keep her along. She's worthy of being your squire."

"It's dangerous" Rose countered. "I should know, I've lost nearly everything I had to this life – my family, the man I loved, even my humanity. I've only got the two friends left, and I don't even dare face one of them because I'm the reason the man who showed her the stars is gone and might never return. And I nearly got the other one killed simply because people noticed she was my friend. I'm dangerous to be around for any length of time. And if Martha sticks around with me, I'm pretty sure the same will happen to her. It happened to my older friend, it happened to me…" Rose looked straight at Hippocrates. "I don't want to destroy her."

"I think you should let your squire decide whether she wishes to risk it" Hippocrates replied. "You might find that she will make the right choices for herself, if presented with a clear picture – as long as you give her a chance. Or did you not choose for yourself?"

Rose sent the man a pained look. "Yes, I did choose" she said. "And this entire universe is in danger because of my choice. That's how wrong my choice was."

"If you truly believed these words, you would not have offered to help me" Hippocrates remarked, and Rose shook her head.

"That's not it. I'm just doing what I can to compensate for the absence of the Doctor."

The old man hummed, but he did not pursue the line of conversation. "I will get you some scales" he said instead, leaning on a cane to get up. "My daughter accepts my presence, but there is no certainty she will tolerate yours."

"Does your daughter let you touch her?"

Hippocrates nodded. "She does not like it much, but she will let me."

"Then I've got a better idea if she will let you" Rose said, rummaging through her pockets. "Now where would those things be... Nail varnish – useless. Umbrella – nope. First aid kit – close but no banana… _That_ 's a banana…"

Hippocrates stared at her. "Just how much can you store in these bags?"

Rose shrugged. "No idea. And they're called pockets – it's like little bags but sewed on clothes – do people sew in Ancient Greece? Of course they do, they had needles in the Stone Age. Ah! Here we go." She pulled out a capped test tube with a swab inside, which she held out to the baffled old man. "There. Don't touch the cotton tip, put it in contact with a fleshy part of your daughter – inside of the mouth's the best – and seal it in this bottle after that. I'll have the TARDIS analyse it and we'll go from there."

"As… as you say" the old man fumbled. "This is a humbling experience, having someone asking me to perform procedures I don't have the faintest idea about."

"At least you're not getting the dumbed-down-but-not-really explanations" Rose replied with a faint smile. "The long and short of it is I'm going to check if your daughter's body remembers that she's human."

"And what is your plan after that?"

"Make it up as I go along?"

"How reassuring…"

"I can't really start planning while I have no idea of how your daughter ended up the way she is now" Rose said reasonably.

"A fair point. I will, er… collect your sample. I shouldn't be too long" Hippocrates said, taking off towards the temple.

"Don't risk it if you can't!" Rose called after him. "Fresh scales should work too!"

* * *

But as it turned out, Hippocrates' daughter did let him scrape a sample from inside her mouth, meaning Rose got the material she needed for an analysis. This in turn meant heading back to the TARDIS, and for a moment Rose had been worried that she'd have to take the ancient man with her, but that particular worry had been unfounded – Hippocrates had explained that he refused to risk further exposition to advancements far enough along the chain of progress that he'd only lose himself and his patients if that unlinked knowledge altered his process.

Not that Rose herself was feeling equal to the task of analysing what had happened to Hippocrates' daughter. She felt completely out of her depth as she tried to make sense of the results the TARDIS' instruments returned – the dumbed down explanation of which was that somehow, dormant gene sequences in human DNA had been activated, resulting in the transformation of the poor woman into… whatever she was now.

The good news was that it meant whatever had happened to the woman was reversible. The bad news was that she had no idea how whatever had been done to the woman could be reversed. "The Doctor was right that time" Rose groused. "He's got a nine hundred years' head start." She sighed with frustration. "God, I'm never going to be able to catch up with all the learning I need to keep doing this."

"You're doing pretty fine from where I'm standing" Martha's voice interjected, making Rose jump from her lab chair and spin to face her companion.

"Oh! You're back!"

"Been for twenty minutes" Martha remarked. "It's already the evening out here – seems you were lost in your own world for a bit."

Rose smiled sheepishly. "I wasn't even doing all that much, just letting the TARDIS do her thing."

"And what did you find out?"

"That I'm stumped" Rose replied with a grimace. "Know what's going on with the poor woman, don't know how that she can be changed back."

"So it _is_ a woman that got turned into that creature" Martha said thoughtfully.

Rose stared at her. "How did you know?"

Martha grinned. "Folk tales. They speak of this young woman from decades ago that ran afoul of the Gods and got cursed, and she's been condemned to live in that Temple ever since."

"Not too far off the mark" Rose breathed.

"See? Told you that you were doing fine, Time Lady."

Rose cringed. "Don't call me that."

"Why not?" Martha shrugged. "That's what Agathe and her daughters decided to call you after we talked a bit. You make for a wonderful story, by the way, the woman knight with golden eyes and a matching heart, traveling through space and time to help all sorts of people. Told them about those Judoon on the Moon, just left out the more sensitive bits I know, and they absolutely loved it."

"Just- just don't call me a Time Lady if you're going to retell that kind of story, please" Rose said quietly. "I'm not one. The real Time Lords and Ladies are gone."

"They were a species that existed?" Martha asked curiously.

"Still exist, technically. Just in a parallel world, and just the one." Rose sighed. "Only one of them left – the Doctor. And even if he's still alive he's lost everything."

"Then if there are no Time Lords left in this universe there's nobody around who will be bothered if I call you that when I talk about you." Martha smiled. "Plus, gives you a bit of mystique – Time Lady, that sounds like something people can believe in, and sometimes it's nice to have that kind of inspiration."

"You make me sound like some kind of Goddess" Rose observed with a frown.

"Mythical creature" Martha corrected. "The Time Lady, in her TARDIS, the stuff of legends. Rings nicely and makes people a lot more likely to believe you're going to save them."

"Yeah, right until that time I'll end up completely out of my depth and screw up horribly" Rose replied with a scowl.

Martha arched an eyebrow. "Just like you saved the world half a dozen times?"

"Only three times, as the Bad Wolf, with the Isolus child, and with the Empress of the Racnoss, and I had help with-" and then Rose caught Martha's winning grin. "You did that on purpose."

"You saved the world three times" Martha replied matter-of-factly. "Everything would already be over if not for you."

"It's not exactly simple to do, Martha. All it takes is one little mistake."

"Never said it was. But you did it anyway. And you'll do it again."

"Or my luck will run out and I'll fail" Rose said glumly.

"Or you'll succeed again" Martha countered. "And something tells me you're not even counting the times you helped someone else save the world – I'm willing to bet there's a fair few times that happened."

"There were a few" Rose admitted grudgingly.

Martha grinned. "See? You're doing a great job, Time Lady – or Bad Wolf? Is that what we should call you?"

"I'd rather be called Rose?" the blonde said hesitantly, to be answered with a negative headshake.

"Too ordinary, and you're extraordinary."

"I'd rather not be reminded…"

Martha smiled at Rose. "What _is_ the Bad Wolf anyway?"

"I don't really know" Rose admitted. "Doubt I ever will. But that's the name of what I made myself become when I looked into the heart of the TARDIS."

"Your ship has a heart?" Martha replied with a surprised expression.

Rose nodded. "She does, and her heart is connected with the Time Vortex. That's how she can travel."

"And looking into her heart gives you supernatural powers? Is that how that works?"

Rose sighed. "Not really. There was this creature once, Margaret, a Slitheen – they're aliens from Raxacoricofallapatorius, and yes, that's a real name – who looked into the heart of the TARDIS and reverted to-" Rose's eyes widened. "And reverted to… Oh."

The young woman pounced on her companion, catching her in a surprise hug. "Martha Jones, you're a star!"

"What did I do?" Martha said, disengaging herself gingerly.

Rose grinned. "Margaret. Blon Fel Fotch. She looked into the heart of the TARDIS and reverted to what she was before. An egg. I didn't revert because I was trying to do something to save the Doctor, but if Hippocrates' daughter looks into it, the TARDIS will surely notice she wants to change back and get another chance – that's what Margaret wanted – and… Yes!"

Rose took off sprinting, leaving a bemused Martha in the TARDIS' lab.

… for all of six seconds before she ran back in. "Any idea where Hippocrates is now?"

"It's the evening, back to the village?" Martha replied hesitantly.

"Obviously. And I'm thick. I'm completely thick. The TARDIS can find him easily, can't you, old girl?" She took off again, in the direction of the control room, Martha following this time.

"You can't just barge in on him!" she protested.

"And I'm sure he'd very much like his daughter back in human form ASAP, he won't mind" Rose said, working maniacally on the controls.

"And how do you think people are going to react to a girl banging on their doors like a loon?"

Rose grinned. "That's why we're appearing inside wherever he is." She pulled on a lever, launching the TARDIS. "Hold onto something!"

The TARDIS whirred and shook, and it was a rougher trip than the one Martha had already taken. Thankfully, the ship stopped shaking before Martha got a dislocated shoulder – and Rose took off the moment they stopped, slamming the TARDIS door open and running into an ornate dining room, in front of four gobsmacked men – the two students and two men Rose didn't know – and a bristling Hippocrates.

"You could have found a more discrete way of announcing your presence" he chided as an embarrassed Martha stepped out – her companion was very much unashamed.

"And your daughter was trapped in a different form for a lot longer than she really had to" Rose fired back rapidly. "Now I've got one question for you – can you talk to her and find out what she really wants, deep down, inside her heart?"

"What exactly is going on?" one of the men Rose did not know interjected, bristling with indignation. "And why is there a woman in this room while we eat?"

"Not a woman, a Time Lady" Hippocrates replied impatiently.

"Not a Time Lady, the Bad Wolf" Rose mimicked. "So? Can you find out what she truly wants?"

The ancient man scowled. "Why are you asking?"

"Because I've got a way of granting her a wish" Rose explained, "but we've got to be sure of what she truly wants deep inside before doing that."

"And how exactly am I supposed to understand what she wants if she cannot talk?"

Rose shrugged. "Not sure. Got an idea I think might work, but we won't know until we've tried."

"I will need a little more to go on" Hippocrates said, drumming his fingers in displeasure.

"I could give you something, but it won't help" Rose admitted.

"Try me."

"The Doctor can speak dinosaur."

Martha laid a hand on Rose's shoulder. "They won't know what a dinosaur is."

"What's a dinosaur?" the other unfamiliar man asked at the same time.

Rose smiled sheepishly. "Very, very big lizard. Think dragon, without the special abilities."

"That doesn't exist" the bristling man objected.

"I did say this wouldn't help."

"I think it does" Hippocrates said with a shrewd look. "Very well, then. I shall accompany you."

"I can't believe this is happening" the more hostile of the two students said, rubbing his temples.

"The Gods and their servants can be fickle" Martha said with a disapproving look at Rose.

"Gods don't travel in time" Rose replied. "Now let's go, there's someone waiting for us."

"I can't believe this is happening…" Martha said, trailing after Rose. Once inside, she turned just in time to see Hippocrates stiffen as he stood on the doorstep.

"You can make your comments once we're inside!" Rose called from behind the central consoles.

Hippocrates stepped in and closed the door. He'd regained his composure once he turned. "Am I supposed to remark how this box is bigger on the inside?"

"The old girl likes it when people say it" Rose said, grinning head popping from behind the time rotor. "Martha, can you help our esteemed guest hold on during the trip?"

"I can, but can you try and make the ship shake a little less?" she responded.

"I don't really know how I would-" Rose's head popped back behind the rotor. "What are you trying to tell me?" She walked back in view, her step hesitant, looking at the instruments. "Alright, there's something here you want to show me, but what?" A pause. Then the young woman pointed at a set of buttons. "These? What would they be for?" She jolted. "Oi! You don't have to be rude about it?"

"What exactly is supposed to be going on?" Hippocrates cut in, earning an apologetic look from Martha.

"I don't know" the medical student admitted. "She says this ship is alive, though, maybe she's talking to her."

"Not talking, but she can nudge me and send me emotions" Rose replied, getting back in motion. "Bit confusing at times – she knows what needs to be done to pilot her but not always the order – then again", she pushed a lever and then a few buttons, "no big surprise a time ship should be getting things out of order, it would be a bit complicated to get your tenses right when you're constantly experiencing the past, present and future."

Hippocrates looked at Martha. "Is she this confusing all the time?"

"At least she's not constantly telling you to save your questions for later" Martha replied with a meaningful look at Rose, who pretended not to notice, preferring a monitor's display as she punched more buttons.

The old man hummed. "There are two ways to hide information – do not talk, and talk a lot more than you need to."

"The Doctor would have hated being seen through like that" Rose said distractedly, pulling another lever and then heading past the other two.

"Where are you going?" Martha asked, and Rose returned her a puzzled look.

Rose arched an eyebrow. "Out?"

"Weren't we supposed to leave?"

"We've landed?"

Martha glared at her. "So all the jolts and bumps the times before were just for fun?"

Rose cringed. "I didn't know the TARDIS had stabilizers?"

Martha sighed. "You really didn't learn to properly pilot this thing."

"She says she isn't a proper Time Lady" Hippocrates remarked. "I suppose a real Time Lady would have been trained to, ah, pilot this thing?"

"And I used to criticize the Doctor" Rose said with a sigh, and she made to open the door – only to be stopped by Hippocrates.

"Don't" he said, and Rose stayed her arm.

"We've got to go to your daughter" she remarked.

"No, I've got to go to her" Hippocrates countered. "She doesn't know you, and you can't speak her language."

"I probably can understand it and make her understand what I say" Rose replied, "the TARDIS would translate for me."

"The TARDIS?"

"This ship" Rose confirmed. "She can make you understand the languages others speak and even make you speak other languages if needed. Right now, for an example, I'm talking to you in ancient Greek, even if I never learned it."

"Would this work for me as well?" Hippocrates inquired, and Rose nodded.

"That's why I brought you along – so she'd know you and translate for you too."

"Then I don't need you out there" the old man said sternly. "You will stay here and do what it is you need to do to prepare to grant my daughter a wish, but you are not coming out until I've talked to her, and you are going to tell me how exactly you intend to proceed and how this is supposed to work before I go to her."

Rose shuffled uncomfortably. "It's a bit hard to explain…"

"I am not an unintelligent man" said Hippocrates.

"I know you aren't" Rose replied hastily, "that's not what I meant."

"She can let your daughter look into the tapestry of the Moirai, as part of it is held in the heart of the TARDIS" Martha cut in, "and the Moirai will look at her truest wish and grant her that if they can."

Hippocrates turned to Rose. "Is that it?"

"Close enough" Rose replied uncomfortably, then she turned grave. "It is something very dangerous – for your daughter, and for us" she pointed out. "I can't predict what will happen to her, and if her heart holds any desire for power, we're not doing this."

Hippocrates returned her a pained look. "My daughter has been forced to live separated from other humans for four decades because of what she has become" he said. "She accepts my company and lets me touch her because I don't treat her as if she were a monster. Believe me, the last thing she wants is more power."

"Just make sure" Rose replied. "I can't let her look into the heart of the TARDIS until we know what she truly wants."

"We will know" Hippocrates replied with certainty. He made for the door, but Rose stopped him.

"There's something else the two of you must know" the young woman said seriously. "No matter what happens, you mustn't look inside the heart of the TARDIS yourself. It's dangerous, extremely dangerous, and unlike me or Margaret when we looked into the heart, you have something to lose."

Hippocrates nodded gravely. "I understand. And you're considering this because my daughter doesn't have anything left to lose."

"That's how it clicked, realizing what was happening when Margaret and I did it" Rose replied. "When I looked into the heart of the TARDIS, I was ready to do anything to save the Doctor, even if it cost me my life. I can't remember exactly what happened, but I know I saved him and destroyed the Daleks who threatened him and the Earth. When Margaret looked, she was desperate for a way to escape execution, but more than that, she'd begun to realize all the crimes she'd committed were wrong, and she wanted a second chance. The TARDIS granted her that, and regressed her back to infancy."

"I can see your reasoning" Hippocrates said, "and I can see why you offered." The old man sighed wearily. "Very well. I will talk to her and try to persuade her. I might need a while, but please be prepared all the same."

The old man left the Tardis, leaving Rose to look questioningly at Martha. "The Moirai?"

"Divinities of Fate" the medical student explained, "who weave it into a tapestry. Thought it would be a way of explaining that Time Vortex thing you mentioned in a way he'd understand."

"That certainly works" Rose said approvingly.

"Domestic approach" Martha replied blissfully. "Turns out it does work."

Rose sighed. "I'm really going to regret dropping my studies someday."

"You've got all of time and space at your disposal for that" Martha said. "You could easily find a place where you can learn really useful knowledge for the kind of lifestyle you lead after you dropped me off."

"Not really" Rose replied quietly. "The Doctor could have taught me given enough time – and provided I could have kept up with him – but he's gone, and so are the rest of the Time Lords. And they're the only ones who lived that kind of life."

"You've also got access to all kinds of libraries and a ship that translates everything for you" Martha remarked. "With a bit of planning and taking the proper time to read and learn you could build quite the culture for yourself."

Rose shook her head. "Wouldn't even work. I might pick up bits and pieces that will end up being useful, but time travel is mostly throwing yourself into situations you're never going to be familiar with – meet the locals, eat the food, make a fool of yourself and act like it's fine, and it really is. I could do with a bit more learning about Earth, that said, because that's where I'm spending most of my time. More comfortable, and that's where I'm from, after all."

"That makes sense."

Rose made for the bench behind the console, beckoning Martha to join her to sit there. "So, how are you finding Ancient Greece?" Rose inquired once seated.

"Surprising and a bit bewildering" Martha replied. "It's really a completely different culture and way of life. A lot of it grates at me, but it's like you said – I'm not going to be able to change history to that degree. But I'm glad I was born after women's lib."

"Yeah, I much prefer future Earth for that reason" Rose said with a small smile.

"I'm not even sure I still want to talk to Hippocrates that much, though" Martha admitted. "He thinks so differently from what even a man like Mister Stoker used to, and he probably wouldn't understand most of what I could tell him about medical science anyway. It's a bit underwhelming, you know, getting to actually meet _the_ figure of reference of your profession and find out he's got very little in relation with you after all."

"It's twenty-four centuries in the past" Rose said sagely. "People can only dream of what the mythical figures of their past would be like."

"I really should have known better, though" Martha said, leaning back on the bench. "I mean, this is a culture that unearthed bear skeletons and reburied them decked in armour because they thought they were remains of heroes of old, and that those heroes really were twice as tall as a normal man."

"You never truly know" Rose remarked. "I've met with a walking ancient Egyptian mummy that was really powered by some sort of alien device – if I actually went back there, I wouldn't be surprised to find some of their divinities actually exist in a way."

"Sure, but twelve-feet-tall men? That one's a stretch."

Rose chuckled. "Walking dead doesn't bother you, but a twelve-foot genetically modified human is impossible?"

Martha looked sheepishly at her companion. "When you put it this way…" She returned to a more composed expression. "How did you even encounter that walking mummy, anyway?"

"Not by design, let me assure you" Rose replied, eyes wandering as she recollected the incident with the Foretold. "It all began in a museum in Luxor, in front of the mummy of Ramesses I…"

* * *

Rose had had the time to recount another two of her adventures with the Doctor, telling Martha about the Blitz and about New New York, two stories the medical student listened to eagerly, asking questions here and there to better understand what had really been going on. She was getting started on Cardiff when a loud bang rattled the door of the TARDIS, making both women jump.

"What is going on?" Martha asked, and she was answered by roaring, and the muffled sound of a familiar old man's plea. The medical student sent a worried look at Rose, who returned a determined one before she walked to the door and opened it, finding herself face-to-muzzle with the dragon.

"Hippocrates' daughter, I presume" Rose said calmly.

A guttural voice Rose knew was a translation replied. "Please, let me die. I have suffered long enough in that form."

"I tried to tell her she might have a chance to return to her true form, but she did not listen!" Hippocrates shouted from behind the dragon, hidden from view by her.

"It's true" Rose said soothingly. "You could really be a woman again, if that was what you truly wanted."

"Everything and everyone I wanted is gone" the dragon replied wearily. "All those I knew are gone, all dead. And I would be old, and my father too – one of us would soon die. I don't want to be human again just to lose what little I still have."

Rose's heart clenched at those words. "I know" she said quietly. "I understand." She sat herself down in the doorway of the TARDIS, and the dragon lowered its head to the floor to look at her, its huge, yellow eyes fixated on the small woman.

"I used to have this friend, I travelled with him for a while" Rose began to retell. "When I first met him, he was in an awful state. He'd just lost everything he loved in a war, a terrible war, and the worst part of it was that he was the one who had to end it all. He'd lost everything and everyone – and to be honest, with the risks he was taking, I think he wouldn't have minded dying, at least not in the beginning; when I didn't know him too well. Once he even took a risk that nearly cost him his life, but he didn't mind at the time, his only concern was for my own life."

Rose smiled sadly at the dragon, whose eyes were letting out rivulets of tears now. "He changed, though" she said. "He stayed around me for a while, even though I was much younger than him – more than eight hundred years younger – and only human, simple, nowhere close to how wonderful he was. And even if it wasn't always easy, even if his life was hard, he showed me the stars, so many strange things and worlds out there. And eventually my friend smiled again, and he stopped wanting to die, even if his people were still gone and he still would end up alone again sooner or later – he will live for centuries, after all, and I was only a human girl."

Rose stood up, and went to lay a comforting hand on the huge muzzle. "But he tried all the same" she went on, "and even if we're separated for a while, I know he'll come back, because I know he's understood that even him, a strange, wonderful, completely superior alien with no equal left in the entire universe could find something worth living for. Something to smile for." Rose took a couple of steps back, and looked as straight as she could into the dragon's eyes. "Who could say with certainty that you couldn't find that again? Something to live for? Something to smile for?"

The dragon let out a rumbling sigh. "I am nearly sixty. Now even if I returned to normal I would be old and grey, and no one would pay me much attention. I'd have to live on a pittance at the mercy of someone who would let me into their gynaecium, and wait there while my father resumed his travels, until I either died or news of his death reached me there. There is truly nothing left for me in this life aside from waiting for death."

"And who is to say you couldn't change back to your youthful self?" Rose replied.

"That would be impossible" the dragon argued. "Not even the Gods can turn back upwards the sands of time."

"The TARDIS can" Rose replied. "She can let you look into the Tapestry of Time, and it will change you" she said, her eyes beginning to glow gold. "She changed back Blon Fel Fotch, gave her an entirely new life from infancy. And if she can turn an old and alien creature back into an egg, she can certainly change you back into a woman – she can change you like she changed me."

The dragon stood up and backed away, staring at the small woman with the glowing eyes. "Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm just a human" Rose replied. "I looked into the heart of the TARDIS, like Blon Fel Fotch did, and I was changed too. I can look at timelines, see how they extend for all beings and look at all the possibilities of what they could become. And I can see the death you aspire to in your future, but I can also see a life – a young woman, who finds herself a place and a man, a hero in a future war, and grows to be happy, raising her children and watching their grandchildren grow in turn."

"But it can't be" the dragon rumbled. "No mortals and none of their devices can turn back time."

"Look at her carefully, my daughter" Hippocrates interjected from somewhere beside the dragon. "She's not a mortal – you can see it in her eyes. She is a Time Lady, who can see the weave of the Moirai and even offer a way of others to gaze into it, truly see for themselves what they can be, and become it."

"She said she's human."

"She's not" Martha interjected, coming to stand behind Rose. "Right before you came to meet us, she told me of how she once raised a dead Egyptian King from his slumber. And you can see for yourself she's not an ordinary mortal – the glow in her eyes, that's the weave of the Moirai inside them."

Rose didn't reply to that. The glow in her eyes suffused, and she looked wearily at the dragon. "I'm sorry if I scared you. But what your father and my friend said is true. You can return to human, and you can return to being the young woman you were before whatever happened to turn you into a dragon."

"It was Hermes" the dragon volunteered. "He'd taken the form of a beautiful man, worthy of being a hero, and he tried to seduce me inside this temple. But I resisted him, and he said something about how I would help him differently instead. Then he brandished some sort of wand at me, and there was this bright beam of light. It turned me into what I have become. Then he said I would deliver a message, but he never told me who I should deliver it to."

"What did Hermes say, then?" Rose asked, feeling uneasiness rising inside her.

"He told me to tell the Bad Wolf that they were not worthy of being called a Time Lord. But I don't know who I'm really supposed to deliver that message to."

"I do" Rose said very quietly. "I'm the Bad Wolf your God mentioned. And I didn't need the message – I know what I am." Rose's voice regained in strength. "And what I am, right now, is someone who can give you a chance at life – if you can believe enough that it can happen that you can wish it."

"But can it really?" the dragon asked. "Isn't it just a vain hope?"

"All that matters is that you hope" Rose replied. "If you have that hope, I will let you look into the heart of the TARDIS."

Water rivuleted again from the dragon's eyes, and Hippocrates spoke in a low voice words that Rose couldn't hear. But whatever he said seemed to strengthen the dragon's resolve. "I will hope" she rumbled. "I have nothing to lose; naught but an impossible dream."

Rose nodded, and then turned to her companion. "Martha, you should leave and join Hippocrates for now. Under no circumstances should either of you come back to the TARDIS or try to look inside until after I've told you it's safe."

Martha couldn't help look a bit curious, but she replied a firm "understood" and stepped outside of the time ship. Rose then turned to the time rotor, and addressed the TARDIS. "Alright, dear old girl. I'm not going to force you to do this if you think it's a bad idea, but I really believe it could work, so I will ask you – can you please let the poor woman look into your heart?"

There was a hum in response, and a sensation of grave assent in Rose's mind; then there was a resounding clang, and a familiar golden light suffused the TARDIS, coming from an open panel between Rose and the door.

The young woman turned and addressed the dragon. "What is your name?" she asked.

"Eudokia" the dragon replied. "That was my name."

"It still is" Rose replied. "It's only your body that has forgotten. But now, it has a chance to remember – just keep in mind, before you look in, that it's dangerous, very dangerous, and there will be no going back."

"I haven't had a life since I have been cursed by the Messenger" the dragon replied, and she brought her head in front of the door, in such a position that she could look at the golden light emanating from the open panel on the ground. She was quickly mesmerized by the sight and whispered a faint "it's beautiful".

Then the golden light seemed to suffuse the dragon's body, making it shine brighter and brighter until Rose had no other choice but to cover her eyes. She stayed still for a long instant, until there was another clang, and a tired nudge in her mind from the TARDIS prompting her to look.

And Rose grinned as she took in the form of the young woman lying unconscious in front of the TARDIS. "Oh, this is fantastic" she said, "absolutely fantastic. The Doctor would have loved this!"

"Is it over?" Martha's voice called from outside.

"Don't look yet" Rose called back, "she's not presentable – but it worked! Eudokia lives!"

Hippocrates said something as well, but Rose didn't pay attention – she ran in the direction of the wardrobe, finding herself in front of a collection of cotton dresses and of togas. She brought back one of each as well as a pair of sandals, laid the toga over the body of the unconscious Eudokia, and shook the young, black-haired woman awake.

"It worked" Rose said with infectious happiness, the moment the woman's hazel eyes found her golden ones. "Your curse is lifted; you're human again, and young as ever."

Eudokia's eyes left Rose, and she hesitantly took a look at herself under the toga.

And promptly fainted, caught by the blonde woman.

"I suppose I should have expected that" Rose mumbled. "But it's totally worth it. Just this once, everything went perfect!"

* * *

At the request of Hippocrates, Martha and Rose brought the restored and disoriented Eudokia to be cared for by Agathe and her daughters, the youngest of which embarrassed Rose with her clear demonstrations of hero worship. Hippocrates then asked Rose what she wanted as repayment for saving her daughter, to which the young woman replied she wanted nothing for herself. Rose then pointed out that it was only thanks to Martha that she'd even thought of offering Eudokia to look into the heart of the TARDIS, and that the medical student was the one Hippocrates should repay, to which the ancient healer had readily assented.

And so it was that a couple of days later, Rose found herself seated in the console room of the TARDIS, holding a still-open book and discussing with a passably disturbed Martha Jones, freshly returned from the Temple of Asclepios.

"You know, I've found a whole new meaning to the expression 'you should never meet your heroes'" the medical student was saying. "I mean, not to sound ungrateful, but I kind-of wish I hadn't witnessed the swearing of the original Hippocratic Oath – that young Eutropios basically sworn himself into servitude and sworn away all of his possessions."

"Yeah, I've read a fair bit about that in the past couple of days" Rose replied, waving her book. "Bit scary, the ancient Greeks, when they set their minds to it."

Martha nodded energetically. "How that man didn't mind is beyond me. And let's not even get started on the fuel this would bring to modern ethical debates."

"This is an era when what's known of anatomy is based on guesswork and dissection of animals, because even human corpses are too sacred to be examined" Rose remarked.

"I know, it will be roughly two thousand years until mentalities change" Martha said, then she smiled. "Still, I wouldn't have missed that for the world. Just the chills of being there while a student was swearing his oath to Hippocrates himself, it's incredible."

"It is a pleasant life" Rose agreed, marking the place in her book and setting it aside. "Did you say your goodbyes?"

"I did. Eudokia said to thank you again, and Euphrosyne said she'd never forget you even if she wasn't allowed to talk about what you did."

Rose looked a bit uncomfortable. "Nobody would really believe her anyway" she mumbled. "What happened is way too far-fetched even for ancient Greek mythology."

"I suppose it is." Martha shuffled a bit where she stood. "Say… Can I ask you a favour?"

"You can certainly ask" Rose replied. "You've definitely earned one – name it, if I can do it, I will."

"Would you take me to New New York?"

Rose looked at Martha, feeling a bit torn. Nothing terrible had happened on this one trip, but she had said she'd stick to one trip for a reason – her travels had, after all, a tendency of bringing her in dangerous situations on a very regular basis. But she did owe Martha – without the medical student, she really wouldn't have been able to help Hippocrates' daughter, nor would she even have been there in the first place.

"Alright, alright" she said finally, standing up, eliciting a wide grin from Martha. "This is stretching a bit the definition of 'one trip', but I suppose it'll be safe enough now that there's no more crazy doctor cats and no more bitchy trampoline. New New York it is!"

"Yes!" Martha went to Rose for a quick hug, and looked at her with a grin. "Do I need to hang onto something this time around, or will you remember the stabilizers?"

"Don't you start" Rose said tartly. "Just for that remark, I might forget to use them."

"I'm fine as long as I make it to New New York capable of standing" Martha replied with a laugh.

"Alright, off we go, then, Martha Jones! Destination: five billion years into the future, New New York. Maybe there you can get me the chips you owe me!"

"I was kind-of hoping you'd forgotten that."

This earned Martha a tongue-in-teeth grin. "Never."

"You'll get your chips, Time Lady."

"Not a Time Lady" Rose groused.

"Calling 'em as I see 'em" Martha replied cheekily.

"I will definitely forget the stabilizers" Rose growled.

She did not really. It was, after all, a bit deliberate.

* * *

 **A/N:** Next stop… Well, Rose already said. I'll leave you to guess when Shakespeare will show up.

Thanks to **Darlok** (spoilers! :D But don't worry, don't intend to make the Master anything like an ally...), **catnip30** , **Shadow Eclipse** , **Locathah** (no parrots in this fic, no Sirree) and **DuShuZhi** for the reviews (kind words are always welcome!)

Slow episode, but needed to do a bit of brick laying. And I suppose some of you will guess who Hermes really is.

Please consider a review? They make an author happy ^^


	6. V - Gridlock

****A/N:**** Doctor Who Rights: Epic item, value: £100,000,000. Don't belong to anybody reading or writing this.

* * *

 **V.** **Gridlock**

* * *

"I thought we were going to arrive on a meadow overlooking the city" were Martha's words right after she ducked back inside of the TARDIS to avoid the torrential downpour washing the backstreets they'd arrived in. Rose had the good grace to look apologetic.

"So did I, I'm just not all that experienced at piloting the TARDIS yet" she said, and then her eyebrows shot up. "Nice of you to say it, old girl, but I can take the blame when I deserve it."

"You're doing it again" Martha said.

"What?"

"Talking to your ship."

Rose patted the coral affectionately. "She's alive and talking to me, why wouldn't I talk back?"

Martha cringed a bit. "It looks weird?"

"So does a medical student from the twenty-first century knowing Hippocrates personally."

Martha groaned. "I can never win with you. And tell me you're not actually going out" she added as Rose made for the door.

"Why not?" the blonde woman replied. "Not expected, but still new, and I'd at least like to make sure this is New New York. I mean, the right New New York."

"Why wouldn't it be the right New New York?"

"If it's the first after the original?"

"Isn't that kind-of implied in the name?"

"Not really" Rose replied, and she smiled wistfully. "If I got the city right, we're technically in New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York. Never thought to ask about the state, though – is it really New New Jersey, or is it somewhere between that and New New New New New New New-"

"I get the drift. And how do you intend to check this is the right New New York?"

"Find someone and ask them if we're actually on New Earth?"

"People from the future aren't very imaginative, are they" Martha said tartly, and Rose smiled.

"Revivalist movement" she explained. "Right after they let our sun resume expanding and the original Earth exploded, there was this big, nostalgic surge and humans from all over the universe went in search of a planet that was as close to the original Earth as possible, and they found this one. The locals – they're cat people – accepted them, and _voilà_ , New Earth, New New York."

"I suppose it makes sense explained that way" Martha said thoughtfully, then she cringed again. "Are we really going outside under this downpour?"

Rose's hand went for her pocket, diving into it well past normally possible limits, and then coming back out holding-

"Tada! Umbrella!" Rose sing-sang, grinning.

"The wonders of technology" Martha said with a flat look.

"Shall we, then, Miss Jones?"

"I suppose."

The pair exited the TARDIS and started to make their way along the dank streets, and Martha made a face. "And I thought Ancient Greece was bad."

Rose laughed. "It's not. Well, it is, but after you've travelled a while you get used to smells attacking your senses and learn to kind-of ignore it."

"Or you run out of olfactory glands" Martha groused. Her attitude stayed as she pointed at something. "Who puts screens on random backstreet doors?"

"New New Yorkers, apparently?" Rose said, taking out her sonic screwdriver and approaching the screen. "Now let's see here… Universal remote…" The screen flared to life, and revealed a display of a great city looming in the distance, over vast green hills. "Here we go! That's the New New York I remember!"

A woman's voice made itself heard at the same time "-and the driving should be clear and easy, with fifteen extra lanes open for the New New Jersey expressway. This is Sally Callipso, signing off. We now take you to commercial."

Rose's screwdriver whined again, and Martha pouted in front of the now-black screen. "I was curious!"

Rose laughed again. "No sneak peek into future haircare products!"

"It would only be a couple more minutes!" Martha protested.

"And then there's this new exotic program from the future, these new commercials, this other new exotic program, and before you know it you've spent half a day in front of a random backstreet door watching year-five-billion-TV and done exactly zero exploring."

"I guess" Martha said, unconvinced. "This would still be interesting."

"If you're really curious after we're done here, the TARDIS can receive literally any channel at any time in the entire universe."

"Doesn't hold too much appeal" Martha mumbled.

Rose gave her an appraising look, soon followed by a sad smile. "Something is bothering you."

"Yes" Martha admitted, then she swallowed. "I know it's not really going to sound fair to you, but this bit about the TARDIS getting all the channels, it felt a bit like inviting me to stay the night to watch TV before you drop me off first thing in the morning, and I'm not sure I like the idea of that."

Rose sighed. "You wish to stay on" she said.

Martha nodded. "At least for a little longer. I'm just beginning to discover just how much is out there, and just how great you can be. And I don't think I can just go to sleep and pick up normally the next morning like nothing special has happened, because it has. You have. And I'd like to spend some time out there traveling with you."

Rose sighed again, looking down. "I've been like you, once" she said in a quiet voice. "Getting swept up by a whirlwind and not thinking twice before embracing it."

"When you met that Doctor you keep mentioning" Martha speculated, and Rose shook her head.

"Years before I stumbled upon him" she said. "I dropped everything I was doing, left my home, abandoned school over a guy. Thought he was wonderful, and he was a bit of a whirlwind himself. Didn't work out. Returned home after a little over a year, but I never managed to pick up where I'd left off. Never picked up my studies, never quite had the same relationship with my mum."

"It's not going to be months and months" Martha replied with a bit of a frown. "I've got no intention of dropping my studies; I see this more as a holiday of sorts."

"It's really not" Rose replied. "You've had a taste for yourself that time on the Moon, I lead a life that tends to get me into serious trouble on a regular basis."

"I don't mind the adventure" Martha said quickly.

Rose chuckled bitterly. "Right now, you don't. And then at some point you're going to find yourself in front of some kind of genocidal monster like the Daleks, or abducted because that'd be a way to get to me, or you'll realize I screwed up and you're about to die, and you're going to change your mind in a hurry."

"Aren't you a bright ray of sunshine" Martha said tartly – and then she jumped with surprise when a wall panel right next to her burst open, revealing a stall and a reedy man who jumped straight into the conversation.

"Your friend's absolutely right! You need Happy! I've got Happy!"

Another stall clacked open on the other side of the street, this one served by a thickset man. "Customers! We've got customers!"

A third stall followed, showing a matronly woman. "We're in business, dearies. Want some mellow before you risk arguing? Nice, cheap, sweet Mellow, Mellow!"

"No thanks" Martha said flatly, turning to look again at Rose. "Drug vendor street, seriously?"

"Sounds more like they're selling moods" Rose said, and Martha snorted.

"Right. Same difference, still chemicals to get high."

A young blonde wearing a shawl had made her way to the stall served by the matronly woman during that exchange.

"And what can I get you, love?" the vendor said heartily. Her customer didn't seem to share her enthusiasm.

"I want to buy Forget" she said dryly.

"I've got Forget, my darling" the vendor replied. "What strength? How much d'you wanna be forgetting?"

"It's my mother and father" the young woman said forlornly. "They went on the motorway."

The vendor turned genuinely compassionate. "Oh, that's a swain" she said as she retrieved and put out a small, circular patch which Rose looked at curiously. "Try this; Forget forty-three. That'll be two pence."

The young woman put a small chip on the counter and took the patch, and noticed Martha's disapproving look. "You've never lost anyone to the motorway, have you?" she said sharply.

Rose cut in before Martha could respond. "Why exactly is it so bad that your parents went on that motorway, anyway?" she asked, and the other woman glared at her, taking Rose aback.

"Nobody comes back from the motorway. Everyone knows that." And before anyone could add anything else, the young woman slapped the patch on her neck, and her posture and attitude changed almost instantly, the weight on her shoulders being lifted suddenly. "What am I doing in a place like this?" she said hesitantly, taking in her surroundings, and Martha cringed.

"Forget forty-three. Does exactly what it says on the label."

"Don't be stupid" the young woman snapped back, "I know better than to get on Moods."

"Leave it" Rose said quietly to Martha as she put a hand on her arm. "We're not getting anything out of this or out of her."

Martha looked at Rose, and nodded. "Sure you don't want to reconsider about year five billion TV?"

"You really could do with some Mellow, dearie" the matronly woman called.

Martha spun to face her. "Not interested" she said sharply. "That's not how I want to remember my trip here."

The woman's face lit up. "Oh, you're not from around here?"

"Just visiting."

"So then it's true what the stories say, there is-"

The woman was cut off by Rose's sudden outcry. Martha spun back on her heels to see her companion held by a burly, short-haired man, one arm around her throat and the other twisting an arm behind her. Right next to him was a woman pointing what had to be a gun straight at Martha.

"What the hell are you doing?" Martha shouted at them, and of all things the woman gave her an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry, we've got to take her. We won't harm her, we promise."

"I'm the one who's going to do the harming" Rose growled as she struggled, and the man twisted harder in response. "Ah!"

"You really don't want to do that" Martha said, taking a tentative step closer.

"We've got to risk it" the man said, breathing heavy but without amenity. "We need three."

Rose managed to grab something from her pocket with her free hand – "Martha, setting 45 opens things!" she shouted, tossing what the medical student recognized as Rose's sonic screwdriver.

Martha fumbled the catch and dived to retrieve the tool from the sodden pavement. She'd have asked questions about what Rose wanted her to do, but didn't get the chance – while she was looking down, the blonde woman had somehow been rendered unconscious, and Rose was now being dragged off towards another green, metal backstreet door, while the young woman in the pair kept her gun trailed at Martha.

"No!" the medical student shouted. "Let her go! Whatever you need she can help you, but you've got to let go!"

"I'm so sorry" the woman responded, waving her gun one last time before slamming the heavy metal door.

Martha swore and ran for the door, only to find it had to have been either locked or barred – and then she remembered the device she was gripping. "Setting 45" she said feverishly, looking for where the settings could be modified and finding three tiny buttons and a little knob near the screwdriver's head. "Lovely."

The young woman fumbled through finding the correct way to input settings on the screwdriver and activated it (that button, at least, was obvious), and found herself rewarded with a satisfying "clong". She opened the door and ran through the dank, smoke-filled corridor behind, and after another door she found herself on top of a flight of metal stairs, just in time to watch a dark, oblong vehicle taking off.

"No! Give her back!" she shouted desperately, but to no avail. The vehicle turned a corner and disappeared, leaving Martha behind.

"And now what am I supposed to do?" she fretted. "I can't follow her, I have no idea where to find her and I can't pilot the TARDIS – how exactly are myself and a sonic screwdriver going to be enough to rescue a Time Lady? Argh!" The young woman kicked the door behind her – to little effect but resounding noise and a wince.

"Ouch!" The medical student nursed her foot, pondering. "They said they needed three. If at least I had an idea of what for I could get an idea of where to look or where to point the local authorities… Meaning I've got to go back to the drug dealers, just can't tell them I'm going to sic the star police on the kidnappers." The young woman looked at the screwdriver in her hand. "Plus, I can open any doors, that's going to count for something."

She clenched her hands, gathering her resolve. "Here you go, Martha. Your mission, save a Time Lady."

And the simplest way to start was by knocking on the now-closed booth of the matronly woman from earlier, which Martha did energetically the moment she was back in front of it.

"Thought you'd come back" the woman said with a happy smile. "Decided you need some Happy after all, love?"

"I need to know where those people took my friend" Martha said harshly, "and you're going to tell me why they said they needed three."

The matronly woman took an indignant expression. "Oi, no need to get in a huff! I'm offerin' somethin' to help – you're never gonna see your friend again anyway."

That gave Martha pause; the medical student's voice was shaken when she spoke. "What do you mean, I'm never going to see her again?"

The vendor turned commiserating. "Well, they were carjackers, weren't they? Means they've gone to the motorway. And nobody comes back from the motorway." She gave Martha a sad smile. "Everybody knows that."

"I've got to find her" Martha replied with a hint of panic.

"You can't."

"I've got to!" Martha shouted, this time with clear desperation in her voice. "Without Rose I can't return home!"

"She's got your keys? Oh, that's a doozy. Yeah, you really need some Happy right now, dearie."

"I've got no time for this" Martha snapped. "Where can I get on the motorway?"

"You don't have a car" the woman replied patiently, "you're not getting anywhere."

"Then I'll just hop into one" Martha shot back. "Where do I get in?"

The woman shrugged. "Your funeral. Straight down the alley, right at the end. Can't miss it."

"Won't be my funeral" Martha replied.

"Nobody can breathe the fumes and survive, dearie" the woman said. "Won't help you knowing where to go."

"No, but I'm pretty sure my friend's got equipment for that in her, er, flat. Thanks for the help, I suppose."

Martha took off in the direction of the TARDIS, ignoring the woman's invitation to come back to her if she needed some forget or happy. Thankfully, the door to the time and space ship was still open, and the ship herself proved very cooperative, leading Martha straight to a hazard suit of a type she was familiar with. The young woman thanked the ship, grabbed the suit and a couple of extra oxygen bottles, and ran back through the alley, hoping there would be a way to find Rose there.

* * *

On her end, Rose was coming-to to find herself lying on a couch in a cramped space she recognized as a flying car, complete with amenities, and to hear the whooping of her abductors as they were granted "fast lane access" – something which had to be remarkably precious, if the monumental traffic jam visible through the car's front window was any indication. Rose also spotted the gun, lying within her reach, but decided against going for it. She wouldn't know how to drive the car, and she had other options if it came to scaring her abductors off. But first, talking.

"If you're done celebrating, mind filling me in on why I got kidnapped?" she said casually, making the couple jump with surprise and break away from each other.

"Oh, you're awake!" the man said, traces of a goofy smile still on his face.

"No, I'm having a fit of somniloquism and dreaming I got abducted by a pair of simpering teenagers" Rose replied tartly, eliciting an indignant protest from the woman of the pair.

"Hey, I'm twenty!" the woman squawked.

"Twenty going on fourteen-and-a-half" Rose replied sarcastically. "I'm still waiting for an explanation once you're done squawking, and it had better be a good one." She felt something slip from her neck, and picked up a dried-out Sleep patch. "Nice one, by the way. Not going to work again now that I'm awake and aware of how you did it."

"Yeah, sorry about that" the man said embarrassedly, "but I was afraid of having to hurt you if you kept struggling, and we mean you no harm."

"We really don't" the woman added. "We just needed three, we really didn't have a choice."

"Needed three for what?"

"For fast lane access, obviously. You know about the car-sharing policy, right?"

Rose gave the woman a flat look. "Not from this planet, mate."

"Oh!" The pair gave her a wide-eyed look, and the woman continued. "Really? There haven't been any off-world visitors in downtown New New York for ages – maybe even since before I was born!"

That caught Rose's attention. "No visitors from off-world in two decades? Exactly what's been going here on since I last visited?"

"Like you'd be old enough to remember" the young woman replied smugly. "You look younger than I do."

"Disaster at a hospital with cat nuns revealed to conduct human experimentation on grown flesh ring a bell?" Rose replied.

"Did that really happen?" the man said. "I thought it was just one of dad's stories to dissuade us to try and make our way to the world above."

"I was there" Rose said simply.

The man looked at her in shock. "You can't have been! That was twenty-eight years ago!"

"She could be one of those long-lived crossbreeds, Milo" the young woman offered.

"Something like that" Rose said noncommittally. "I still don't know what I'm doing here or why nobody has come from other worlds in a couple of decades."

"Don't know about the latter" Milo replied. "As to the former, and as you could guess, Cheen and I needed a third adult in the car if we ever were going to get out of Pharmacy Town."

Rose sent him a flat look. "Yeah, abducting someone to get out of the traffic jam, I got that part. Still not good enough."

"We just can't stay in Pharmacy Town" Cheen replied with a hint of defiance in her voice. "I'm really sorry, but we had to do that if there ever was going to be a chance."

"I can get that" Rose replied, "looked miserable down there. I can also get from the traffic jams and the fact we haven't moved forwards since we started talking but only downwards that it can take forever to get from point A to point B."

Cheen cringed. "Decades, actually. That's how long it would have taken us had the two of us been on our own to make it to Brooklyn. They have jobs there, and they have a place fit for a child to grow up in – we're pregnant" she added with a dreamy smile.

"Congratulations" Rose said flatly. "And that fast lane cuts your travel time by how much?"

"It gets us to the Brooklyn flyover in less than an hour" Milo offered. "There's no fast lane after that, but it's only five miles."

Rose gestured at the outside. "Five miles of that?"

"Yes, but it shouldn't be too long" Milo said in his most reassuring tone of voice. "It'll only be six years or so."

That earned Milo another flat look. "Six years. You thought it was a good idea to kidnap a complete stranger and live with them cramped in one single car for six years, giving birth to a kid in the process and beginning to raise them in the presence of a very, very grumpy passenger."

"We really mean no harm!" Cheen protested. "We'll drop you off as soon as we are able, I promise!"

"Which would be in how long?"

"It's only four or five months from the beginning of the Brooklyn flyover to the first layover" Milo supplied.

"Oh, that's so much better" Rose replied sarcastically. "You were _only_ going to leave my friend stranded for four or five months without any idea of how to make a life for herself on a strange and unfamiliar world – in the dumps you were so eager to escape, filth-ridden backstreet alleys lined with drug vendors and apparently without enough jobs even for the locals." Rose took no satisfaction in the ashen faces that greeted her tirade, but she forged on. "Not to mention you never bothered to wonder whether the person you were abducting might just be a mite dangerous, if only because they'd be thoroughly pissed at being abducted from their life and you'd somehow have to placate them for four or five months, because there's no way somebody without a job could have afforded a five-months long supply of moods to keep them under. Bloody brilliant, the pair of you."

"I won't let you threaten our child" Milo said as threateningly as he could manage, only to earn himself a shrug.

"Don't bother" Rose said dismissively, "I would never endanger an unborn kid's life anyway. Which is more than I can say about the pair of you – why exactly are you on one of these moods?" she said, pointing at Cheen's neck.

"Honesty patch" the young woman groused, "to prove to you our good intentions."

"Minus the whole kidnapping-thing" Rose replied sarcastically. "You might still be in luck – you've possibly kidnapped the one person who doesn't need to spend the whole four or five months with you to get off your car, and all it'll cost you is a gas mask. You've got spares, right?"

The couple looked at her with disbelief. "You're not seriously thinking of jumping from car to car, are you?" Milo said.

"Only need to get on the roof after you've cleared that fast lane" Rose replied, "you don't need to bother about the rest. I'd offer to take the pair of you as well, but everything you own would be staying in that car, right?"

Milo looked at Rose like she was crazy. "You can't teleport outside of the motorway, it's self-enclosed."

"Anddd you don't really need to worry about that" Rose said evasively, then she turned sharper as she addressed Cheen. "And I'd get that mood thing off if I were you. Pregnancy and drugs – bad mix."

"Never caused problems for anybody" the young woman snapped back, "and it's not your business what I put in my body anyway."

"No, but it'd kind-of be a shame if your kid were born a mood-addict, like a lot of people here seem to be" Rose replied pointedly. "Speaking of which, would that mood addiction have anything to do with why off-worlders haven't been coming to visit for a couple of decades? Did some government official swimming in chemicals decide strangers weren't allowed anymore?"

"Who knows?" the young man replied, a hint of defiance in his voice. "It's not like they ever bother coming down there. Their world's skies and trees and apple grass, why would they care about people living where none of that can ever be accessed? There's even an automatic lockdown on cars to stop us from flying to the roofs above our heads, or even the upper levels – we're parked down there and forced to waste our lives on the motorway if we ever wish to get anywhere else."

"Would explain why no off-worlders make their way down there" Rose said pensively. She mulled this over for a moment, then looked pointedly at the couple again. "Say… what if you two were given a chance to show up in front of whatever government there is up above and got to air your grievances like you just did, only more extensively?"

"They would never listen" Milo dismissed. "We'd never make it inside the Senate building anyway."

"Assume I can teleport you anywhere – without your car, I'm sorry about that" Rose said mildly. "Which means like, say, showing up out of nowhere in the middle of the Senate chambers."

Milo glared at her. "Assuming we could – and we've got no reason to think that – we'd just get torn down to pieces by security before we even got to take a step."

"Assume we wouldn't" Rose replied. "Like, assume a nuclear bomb could blow up right next to us and we'd be unscathed from the explosion."

Two jaws dropped.

"Not possible" Milo made after he'd recovered.

"I've found out nothing's impossible" Rose replied. "Plus, getting you up there and giving that stern talking-to to whoever's in charge could help millions who're either stuck here on the motorway or forced to stay down in the slums – and that you're desperate enough to resort to kidnapping and spend six years living inside a glorified shoebox should send its own message."

"And if they refuse to listen?" Cheen said.

"Then I take down the government" Rose replied simply.

"You take down the government" Milo repeated, his disbelief plain.

"Or at the very least I give it my best try – I'm not going to let the people up there ignore the plights of millions without causing them serious headaches."

"What can a lonely woman do to even make an entire government feel threatened, let alone fall?"

"Assume I can be really intimidating if I really set my mind to it" Rose said with the same kind of tone as earlier.

"That's a little hard to believe" Milo protested. "I mean, you've got quite the temper and a big gob" ("I'm flattered" Rose chirped in), "and you're quite the handful when struggling, but a stick of a woman in leather doesn't quite look like she can scare an entire regime."

"Ergo the telling you to assume bits" Rose replied flatly, "you won't believe it's happening until you see it happening anyway. But if it could happen, would you be willing to at least try and speak on behalf of the others who're stuck down here?"

"Without hesitation" – "Absolutely" came the replies.

"Brilliant" Rose said. "So, three gas masks?"

Milo's expression turned a bit sheepish. "Do we absolutely have to be on the roof to teleport out?"

"I _could_ materialize my ship inside your car, but it'd be a very bad idea" Rose countered.

"Why?"

"Solid matter materializing inside solid matter? We'd blow up half the city – if we're lucky – and I'm not in such a hurry to talk to your Senate that I'd kill a couple dozen millions or so to get there."

"Well, we've got a bit of a problem, then" Milo mumbled.

Rose looked at Cheen. "He forgot to get some gas masks."

"It's only a six-year trip" Cheen said defensively, "it's not like there would be much need for external maintenance."

"We were only planning to get out after we went through the airlock at the other end" Milo mumbled, "we didn't know you could teleport us all the way up".

Rose arched her eyebrows. "You could have _asked_ for help rather than kidnap me and drug me unconscious?"

"We're really sorry" Cheen said, looking down, "really, terribly sorry."

Rose sighed and threw herself back on the couch. "Nevermind that. Four or five months it is – dwelling on what you two screwed up isn't going to change things."

"We really didn't know" Milo said, very chastened. "We were so desperate. And we would never have guessed."

"Forget it" Rose snapped. "Just, once we're out of here, I'm going to check up on the friend we've left stranded – hopefully she'll still be in one piece and not driven crazy after being stranded fifty-odd galaxies away from home."

"We're awfully sorry" Cheen said, but Rose ignored her.

"Although knowing Martha, she might find a way to get in touch with us before the layover… She's got a good head on her shoulders and quite the temperament. I don't think she's going to give up and just sit tight and wait without knowing when I can finally make my way back to her…"

* * *

Rose was entirely correct. While she was busy discussing with Milo and Cheen, a fuming Martha clad in her acquired hazmat suit had reached the motorway and been taken on board by a completely baffled cat-man and his human wife.

"Why would anyone in their right minds be willing to _walk_ into the motorway?" the cat-man was asking as Martha busied herself with the fastenings of her protective cowl. "Been driving for twelve years, never heard of anyone not inside a car ever getting here."

Martha's head emerged from the removed cowl. "You've been driving for twelve years" she echoed disbelievingly.

"It's not like it's that unusual or exceptional" the cat-man replied. "Some people I know have been driving for over twenty years!"

"And my friend's stuck in there" Martha breathed.

"Your friend?" the woman queried.

"Yes, she got car-jacked about half an hour ago, barely missed her kidnappers. That's why I was walking."

The cat-man gave her an incredulous look. "She must be really special to you, that friend."

"Not just to me. I've got a selfish reason to look for her, though – without her, I'm stuck."

"Maybe not all that stuck." The cat-man extended a hand, which Martha shook gingerly. "Thomas Kincade Brannigan; and this is the bane of my wife, the lovely Valerie."

"Pleased to meet you" the woman said, extending her hand in turn.

"Martha Jones. Not all that stuck, you said?"

"I did – and in more ways than one; we're moving!"

The car lurched forward, but not for very long, at least not by Martha's reckoning. Thomas, on his end, certainly looked pleased. "Twenty yards!" he said enthusiastically. "We're having a good day!"

"We're not finished, dear" Valerie remarked.

"Oh yes! And here, in the back, is the rest of the family" the cat-man said proudly. "Two months old. Poor little souls; never felt the ground under their paws."

"And how long until they'd get that chance?" Martha asked in a weak voice.

"Oh, perhaps seven or eight years. That's how long it should take to finish the trip to the laundries on Fire Island – they've got jobs for the both of us there, and the kittens once they grow up. Certainly better than risking our luck back where we started."

Martha cringed. "And how far back is back where you started?"

"Five miles?"

"Five miles" Martha repeated. "You've been driving five miles in twelve years."

"That's why there are carjackers" Thomas said. "If there's three adults in one car they get special fast lane access. For all the good it does them"; that last part was spoken with a definite lack of enthusiasm.

"Why would it not do people good to drive on the fast lane?"

"I'd rather not talk about that, if you don't mind" Valerie interjected. "And before you think about asking, no, we're not driving down there, and it's not negotiable, not with the children on board."

"Alright, alright" Martha said defensively, putting her hands up. "I won't ask. Figures, though, it wouldn't be Rose Tyler if she didn't end up in some kind of jeopardy just because she's around."

"Your friend's a troublemaker?" Thomas asked, eyes glinting with mirth.

"More of a trouble-makes-her" Martha groused. "You said there might be a chance to locate her?"

"Oh yes" Thomas replied happily. "Let me call the Cassini sisters."

"Isn't there the police or some other service to call?"

"You can always try while I get in touch with the sisters" Thomas offered, gesturing towards a communications device in the back of the car, making Martha cringe again."

"How does it work?" the young woman asked, and then she quickly added an "I'm an off-worlder, not familiar with this thing and don't know where to place the call."

"I'll help you" Valerie offered, getting out of her seat.

Thomas grinned. "This is purrfect."

"Do you have to?" Valerie said tartly.

"Don't get visitors too often, do we?"

"You're impossible."

"I love you too!"

Martha couldn't help a snort. "You have an interesting couple going there."

"I hope so" Valerie said. "My parents hoped I'd be marrying a boring and proper human, I'm glad I settled for an energetic cat – even if he doesn't know how to behave."

"I'm hurt" Thomas chirped in.

Valerie grinned at Martha. "He's not, there'd be spittle all over the controls."

Thomas let out a drawn mewl. "Can I call the Cassini sisters now?"

"You do that, love" Valerie said, turning her attention to the communicator in the rear. "Let's see here – three, four, diamond, zero…" A display flashed with the New New York police emblem. "Here we are. I hope you're patient, Martha Jones, because it's going to be at least eleven days before we get someone."

Martha stared at the woman. "We're getting put on hold for _eleven days_ by the police?"

Valerie returned an apologetic smile. "At least. Nobody managed to wait for longer – that guy ended up going to sleep."

"You mean he-" but Valerie shook her head, cutting Martha off. The medical student felt herself deflating. "You've all been abandoned here on the motorway, haven't you?"

"We keep faith" Valerie said simply. "Someday, there will be someone who comes and gets us off the motorway."

"Now I really wish I knew where we can find Rose" Martha said.

Valerie arched an eyebrow. "That friend of yours that got carjacked? What could she possibly do?"

"I don't know" Martha answered honestly, "but I know she would do something. I've seen her manage completely impossible things before."

"That friend of yours" Thomas called out from the front, "she came in through Pharmacy Town?"

"She came through this very entrance!" Martha replied, and she checked the chronometer on her suit. "Thirty-seven minutes ago!"

"There you are, Missus" Thomas said to whomever he'd been talking to. "Only one car matches? Great, can you…? Four six five diamond six? Perfect. Thank you, sister!" Thomas snorted with laughter and pressed a button to terminate his call. "Here we go."

"Let's call that car, then?" Martha said pointedly, only to be met by Valerie's sad smile.

"We can't. They're designated fast lane, it's a different category."

Martha groaned with frustration. "Can we at least spot the car?"

"Right over here" Thomas said, pointing out at his display. "Eighteen rows below, two lanes to the right, three cars to the front – now just you wait a minute, you can't possibly be thinking of-"

"Car-hopping?" Martha finished as she dragged her cowl back on. "You're right I am. Four six five diamond six, right?"

"Yes, right, you've got good memory – and that's beside the point. Have you taken leave of your senses?"

Martha smiled maniacally. "Just for this trip. Thank you, Thomas, Valerie!"

She clasped her helmet back on and removed the sonic screwdriver from a safe pocket.

"Now what?" Thomas said.

"Trapdoor?" Martha's voice answered, distorted by the suit as the young woman pointed at a circular plate at her feet.

"Yes, there's safety exits both at the top and bottom of every car, but you are- YOWL!" Thomas threw his hands on his head as the sonic screwdriver whined, and the kittens chorused in the back of the car.

"Sorry about that" Martha said as the trapdoor slid open. "Thanks for everything. See you!" And before she could think about it the young woman let herself fall directly on the roof of the car below, leaving Thomas and Valerie to stare at each other in disbelief.

"I'll never again say you're completely insane" Valerie said.

"That woman certainly got me looking sane" Thomas replied. "And she's never going to make it, not with only one layer between her friend and the fast lane."

"Why didn't we tell her anything?"

"Because we didn't know she could disable the safety locks with that screeching thing of hers?"

"Good point. Turn the communicator back on, please, love, it's almost time for the Contemplation."

* * *

"It's time for the Contemplation" Cheen was saying to Rose at the same time, while her husband activated a screen revealing a familiar face.

"This is Sally Callipso, and it's that time again. The sun is blazing high in the sky over the New Atlantic, the perfect setting for the Daily Contemplation."

"It's a recording" Rose breathed. "The weather doesn't match."

"Shh" Cheen made gently as Sally Callipso advised people to drive safely and apologized, and Rose had half a mind to berate the young woman for so blatantly ignoring the obvious; but then the singing started, a poignant song of loss, and Rose lost any feeling of vindictiveness she might have had. She sat in silence as the couple sang along with, in all likelihood, hundreds and thousands in their cars all over the motorway, following the recorded choir relayed over their communicators.

"I have to do something" she said resolutely once the singing was over.

"You can't for the next few months" Milo reminded her.

"Maybe, maybe not – that's going to depend on Martha."

"You have a lot of trust in your friend" Cheen remarked. "You two must go a long way back."

Rose chortled. "Not that long – and how long changes depending on who you ask."

Cheen looked at her blankly. "That doesn't really make sense."

"Think about it" Rose replied with a tongue-touched grin.

"You stalked her before she knew you?" Milo tried, and Rose laughed.

"Nice and logical. You've got a good head."

Milo levelled a flat look at her. "Tell me I wasn't right."

"Not even close" Rose replied.

The console chirped, cutting off the conversation: "Fast lane access. Please drive safely."

The young couple exchanged entranced looks. "We made it" Milo said. "The fast lane."

And the fast lane had good reason to be that – in contrast with the humongous traffic jam the car was descending away from, the lines designated fast lane were completely empty. Or at least the top layers – somewhere below, something was emitting a sound suspiciously akin to growling.

Rose let out a groan. "Tell me that nothing is living down there."

"There really isn't" Milo said reassuringly, and he squeezed Cheen's hand. "Legends talk of creatures living in the depths of the motorway, feeding on the exhaust fumes, but that's all it is, a legend. It's only the air vents sounding like that because they're strained. Nothing could live down there."

"If there's one thing my travels taught me, it's that nothing's impossible" Rose countered. "And this one's actually not all that far-fetched – the components of exhaust fumes are actually going to be nutrients for some life forms, and living organisms have been known to adapt to all kinds of toxicity. If there's nobody taking care of maintenance and cleaning up the bugs down there, life forms could have developed and colonized the entire bottom of the motorway, clogging the actual vents and creating an even more favourable environment for themselves and larger species in the process."

Rose sentence was punctuated by a sound akin to screeching, making Milo and Cheen go white with fear. "Yeah, that wasn't air vents."

Cheen's voice was shaking. "How far to the Brooklyn flyover?"

"Little over four miles. Might have to do a loop, though, it's currently listed as closed, but as long as we're on the fast lane it'll take less than two hours to come back and by then it should be open."

"Not too keen on that" Rose said. "Any way I could take a look below us?"

"There's safety exits on top and bottom of all cars" Milo answered. "You're not going to see anything, though; too much smoke."

"I'm going to try something about that" Rose said. "Got no idea whether it'll work, but you never know."

"Alright, then." Milo pressed a few controls. "Don't even think of putting your head outside the car. Way too toxic."

"I'm not insane" Rose protested, before backtracking: "Well, I guess I am, actually, but I'm not a masochist."

Cheen snorted. "Just crazy."

"Just crazy."

The trapdoor opened, and Rose peeked through. There wasn't much to distinguish aside from a shifting mass, but the growling and screeching that entered the car were clearly not the noises from air vents. The young woman concentrated, focusing on her time sense.

Then both she and Cheen gasped.

"What the-" Cheen started, only to be cut off by Rose.

"Milo, veer to the right, now!"

"What?"

"NOW!"

The car lurched, and there was a loud, wet clacking sound just in the position they'd have flown towards.

"What the hell was that?" Milo shouted while Cheen gibbered in fright.

"No time for that! Brake!"

Milo executed himself, and saw a giant pincer clack right in front of the windscreen.

"Holy-"

"Left!"

Another lurch.

"Dive!"

"We're not going towards whatever these things-"

"Just do it! Dive!"

They dived, Cheen screaming in panic, and Rose had to shout to cover her. "Shut the trapdoor and shut down the car! Now!"

Milo obeyed, and the car stopped where it was, plunging into darkness, the only light sources left coming from the sleep mode displays – and from Rose's eyes.

"What the hell?"

"I'm really sorry about that" the blonde woman replied, letting go of her time sight, "but what I did just saved our lives."

"Nevermind that" Milo snapped, "what the hell are those things?"

"I don't know" Rose answered honestly. Cheen was now whimpering in her seat, folded upon herself. "Tend to your wife" Rose said, "I need to think a bit about what happened and how we could get out of this fix."

"And what was that with your eyes?"

"Save that question for later. Cheen needs you."

The young man turned to his wife, who launched herself in his arms and asked something Rose couldn't catch. His eyes didn't quite leave Rose as he said a soothing "it's alright, we're gonna make it through this, it's alright."

"It's not alright!" Cheen wailed. "We're going to die!"

"We're not" Rose said calmly.

"How would you know that?" Cheen cried out – and then she gave another shout of fright as the car tilted to the left. "Please, not now! Please, not now! Please, not now!"

"Give her some Sleep" Rose said quietly for Milo.

"What is wrong with you?" the young man shot back.

"She can't handle this right now, and we need to _think_ if we're going to make it out alive."

Milo looked at Rose, gobsmacked.

"Now!"

"Please don't. Please don't. Please don't!" Cheen cried out as her husband fumbled with something in his pocket – but Milo applied a patch on her neck anyway. "Please… don't" his wife whimpered, and then she fell silent, cradled in his arms.

"She better wake up to something" the young man said darkly.

"I can't promise that" Rose replied, "and we don't have time to argue."

"We've got just enough time for you to answer one question" Milo replied. "What are you?"

"I told you, genetically modified human" Rose answered. "Slower cellular aging, sort-of time sense. That's how I could guide you moments ago."

"There's more to it than that" Milo replied, holding onto his wife protectively. "You've got a way to get us out of here by teleporting – you're going to use it, and-"

"I'm not going to" Rose interrupted, her voice very quiet. "I told you, if I try and do it I blow up half of the city."

"You said you could make us immune to even a nuclear explosion."

"I'm still not slaughtering millions just to save four lives" Rose said more sharply. "And believe me, there's nothing I'd like more than to get the hell out of here, but I can't. I'm not worth all these lives; none of us are worth all these lives."

Milo's expression turned desperate. "Then what are we going to do?"

"Think of something" Rose replied quietly. "How much air have we got?"

Milo's eyes flicked to his displays. "About eight minutes."

"That's our reprieve. If we can't find something I'll guide you out of here, I'll use that foresight of sorts again. We can keep going for a while, we'll try and find a way back up in normal traffic. We'll be out of reach of these things."

"The flyover is closed."

"That's why we'll return to the regular motorway."

"We don't have permission to return to the regular motorway."

Rose stared at Milo for an instant. Then she regained her composure. "In this case it's up to Martha" she said.

"That friend of yours you weren't going to see for months?" Milo asked with plain disbelief.

"It won't take months" Rose replied with a smile. "From what I know of her, she's probably got an idea of where we can be found by now."

* * *

Rose was correct again, although Martha was stumped about what she needed to do at that point. The young woman had reached the bottom layer after a number of jumps down, landing in the car of a man in a bowler hat who'd had the good grace of offering her a cup of water, giving her time to think of how to proceed based on the progress made by car four six five diamond six when she checked after every jump to a new car (to the exception of the naked couple she'd happened upon, she'd quickly made her excuses and left them to their business).

Martha's current problem was that car four six five diamond six no longer was detected on the motorway – and judging by the growls and screeches and smoke-shrouded motions coming from below them, where the fast lane was supposed to be opened, chances were her friend was in serious trouble. Or she no longer was and had called the TARDIS back to her, in which case Martha wasn't going to find Rose anytime soon.

A possibility Martha didn't want to think about.

"Alright, no car four six five diamond six" she said uncomfortably. "How about other cars on the fast lane? How many are there?"

"Near to us?" bowler-hat-man replied. "Seven – no, six. One of them just disappeared."

"Took a flyover?"

"They can't. All flyovers are closed."

"A car can't just disappear in the middle of nowhere!" Martha protested, and then she exchanged a meaningful look with the car's driver. "There's beasts below, aren't there?"

"No one actually knows" the man replied uncomfortably. "Only the people on the fast lane would; communications are cut off from the regular motorway."

"Yeah, I've been told about that" Martha said unhappily. "Can you check a car's last position before they disappeared?"

"Not without asking the police, you can't."

Martha groaned with frustration. "Please, tell me I didn't go all the way down here for nothing."

It was at that moment the trapdoor above was forced open, and a cat-woman in a blue nun's uniform, armed with something that looked uncomfortably like a personal machinegun, dropped into the car, took a look at Martha, and levelled her weapon at the medical student.

"Where's the Doctor?" the cat-woman hissed.

"Whoa, slow down!" Martha said, raising her hands hastily, at the same time bowler-hat-man protested loudly.

"No guns! I'm not having any guns on board!"

"I'm not going to shoot unless she forces my hand" the cat-nun said, eyes not leaving Martha. "I'll ask again: where's the Doctor?"

"Doctor who?" Martha replied.

"Don't play games" the cat-woman hissed. "I've tracked his sonic screwdriver."

"Oh! _That_ Doctor!" Martha said, suddenly realizing what that was about. "Sorry, no, he's not here. And that screwdriver is Rose Tyler's."

"His companion?"

"I don't know about that, but she's the one in charge these days now the Doctor is gone."

The cat-nun lowered her gun, a horrified expression on her face. "No, tell me he's not-"

"Not that I know. You'd have to ask Rose for the full story, I don't really understand myself."

The cat-woman recovered. "Then I have to find out. And where is Rose Tyler?"

"That's what I was trying to find out" Martha replied with a hint of annoyance.

"She's on the motorway too?"

"Car four six five diamond six – only it's gone silent."

"Good enough for me" the cat-nun said, and she slung her arm on her back and grabbed Martha by the arm.

"Hey!"

Then the world around Martha lurched, and she suddenly found herself on all fours in near-complete darkness, trying her best to keep hold of her last meal.

"Martha!"

"Rose?"

"What the hell is going on now?" Martha looked up, catching sight of a very pissed-off young man who was cradling an unconscious woman in his arms. "How did you get into my car?"

"Teleported" the cat-nun said, "although I only had the power for one trip." She turned to the small blonde woman. "Rose Tyler. I'm told you're hard to find."

"Do I know you?" Rose asked in response.

"We met briefly twenty-eight years ago, at the hospital" the cat-woman replied, "although you might not remember much of me. I'm Novice Hame, and I'm looking for the Doctor. Where is he?"

Rose looked down. "Not here" she said quietly.

"He'd have to be" the cat-nun protested. "We've spotted the TARDIS."

"I lost him a little over a year ago linearly – he's stuck in a parallel world" Rose answered. "I'm the one who travels with the old girl nowadays."

The cat-nun deflated visibly for the second time. "Then my search was in vain. My master will be so disappointed. And we're stuck down here, now that I no longer have power."

"Car's got power" the young man cut in. "Name's Milo, by the way, and this is my wife Cheen. And you wouldn't happen to be Martha Jones, would you?" he added with a piercing look at the medical student, who'd now gotten back on her feet.

"I am, yes."

"Told you she'd try something" Rose said a bit smugly.

"Yeah, you did. How many can your teleporter transport?" he asked Novice Hame.

"It could have gotten all of us out, and it can't use this car's power reserves" the cat-nun answered. "We'll have to drive our way out of here."

"Maybe not" Rose said. "Martha, still got the screwdriver?"

"Sure!" The medical student retrieved the device and held it out to its owner. "Try not to lose it again."

"No promises" Rose replied off-handedly. She turned to Novice Hame. "Can I have your teleporter?"

"It's not really going to help, but yes, you can" the cat-nun answered, unclasping the device's bracelet and handing it over to the blonde woman.

"Thank you, Novice Hame." Rose started to fiddle with her screwdriver.

"This is not going to work, though" the cat-nun said. "The power source and the teleporter won't be compatible."

"Once reactivated an alien multipurpose camouflage device by connecting it with a diesel generator" Rose replied, voice straining with concentration. "This shouldn't be too much of an issue; there's just the one thing."

"What is it?"

"Milo" Rose called, lifting her head from her work to look at the young man.

"Yes?" the man answered.

"I'm really sorry, but we'll have to abandon your car and everything in it."

"I don't care" Milo replied bluntly. "I just want to get out of here alive with my wife and child."

"That I can give you." She held the teleporter back out to Novice Hame. "Set the coordinates for where we need to go" she instructed. "We'll have to switch the car back on, and I'll have to quickly reroute some power into it before whatever's out there gets a crack at us."

"They're Macra" Novice Hame said.

"They could be the vengeful ghosts of all the Kings of Britain for all I care" Rose said bluntly. "No matter what happens, you all have to grab onto me and make sure not to let go, but you'll need to leave my arms and head free and not get between me and the car's console, so this is going to be awkward. Milo, you're going to grab me from behind with your wife in-between us. Martha, Novice Hame, this is going to be bloody uncomfortable for you two; you've each got a leg, and you're going to have to reach around Milo's. Don't be afraid to squeeze. Any questions?"

"Where are we going?" Milo asked, for Novice Hame.

"The Senate" the cat-nun answered. "My master is waiting for us there."

"Hope you're not too loyal to your master, because I'm going to kick his ass for keeping all of us stuck down there" the young man said belligerently.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves" Rose cut in. "Novice Hame, can I have the teleporter back?"

"I'm done" the cat-nun replied, returning the device to the blonde woman.

"Alright. Everybody in position and brace yourselves, this isn't going to be pleasant."

* * *

It wasn't – the only one who didn't suffer to some degree was Cheen, and that was because she was kept under by the sleep patch. And of course, the disorientation led to everyone crash-landing in a heap on the cold marble floor of the Senate chambers.

"Can't believe a year six-billion teleporting device is still so rudimentary" Rose choked out as she crawled away from the heap.

"Why do you complain, you from the future or something?" Milo groused. "Besides it took us here and-"

"Oh my God!" Martha put her hands over her mouth, staring in shock all around her. Dried out corpses were strewn everywhere in what was set up as a main chamber of Parliament.

"So this is what happened" Rose said quietly. "They all died. The entire upper city."

"They did" Novice Hame confirmed, finding her own footing. "There was this new mood, a chemical called Bliss – and inside was caught a virus which mutated quickly, became airborne. It killed the entire city except for the areas that got closed out."

"That's why the flyovers stay closed" Rose mused. "The whole lower city and the motorway aren't being used to keep their inhabitants downtrodden – it's a quarantined area. Which means-"

"The virus has long since died out" Novice Hame cut in. "There's no danger left here; there hasn't been for twenty-four years."

"Except perhaps you" Rose said with a dark look. "I remember what you guys were up to last time I visited."

The cat nun bowed her head. "I only survived by pure chance. I was made to serve my current master as penance for my past sins. If you will not trust me, please trust him."

"Is he alive?"

"He was protected. And when the crisis occurred, he shielded me from the virus with his fumes."

"So it's only you and your master living up here" Rose concluded, and the cat-nun nodded.

"It is only us. All we could do was keep the system of the motorway from choking – there isn't enough power left to reopen it."

Rose made a face. "Going to be a lot trickier than powering back up a teleporter."

"You should discuss this with my master, among other things" Novice Hame replied, starting to walk away, Rose following. "This is why we needed the Doctor. But between the two of you, maybe something can still be done."

"Do you want us to come with?" Martha called from behind.

Rose stopped. "Could you check on Cheen? She's pregnant and we've had to put her to sleep, she was headed into hysterics."

"Oh, brilliant idea" Martha said sarcastically. "How far are you going to be?"

"Next room" Novice Hame supplied. "Come now, Rose Tyler. My master awaits."

"And just who _is_ your master?"

"The Face of Boe".

Rose stared at the cat-nun for an instant. "He's the one who saved the undercity?"

"He is. My master is giving up his energy to keep the city from sinking into the depth of the seas."

"And this has been going on for twenty-four years" Rose breathed. "And you – you stayed to take care of him all this time, didn't you?"

"I did" Novice Hame confirmed, leading Rose on – at least until the young woman stopped in her track, right in front of a door at the end of the senate chamber.

"There's something wrong on the other side of this door" she said quietly. "Your master may not be alone in here."

"There's no one else left alive on this world" Novice Hame countered. "It has been quarantined ever since the virus began its rampage."

"There's still something really wrong inside. I've got a time-sense of sorts and it's making it, er, twitch."

"It is said the Face of Boe has lived for billions of years, maybe that's what makes you uncomfortable."

"He has, he was around in the year two hundred thousand" Rose reminisced, and then she had a small laugh. "Helped me with a trivia game, even though he didn't know me back then. I guess I owe him one."

She stepped inside the side-chamber, all senses in alert, followed by Novice Hame. It was much darker in there, most of the light coming from displays and consoles on the walls and from a spot illuminating the large, familiar tank inside which the Face of Boe rested, a distinct look of weariness on its ancient, huge features. The Face was also the source of her discomfort – somehow, it gave off a sense of _wrong_ which the young woman couldn't explain.

" _Rose Tyler_ " a voice made, speaking directly inside her head.

"The Face of Boe" Rose said with a wince. "You're the one who saved all those people."

" _I cannot_ " the Face replied in her mind. " _I could only give them a brief reprieve._ "

Rose couldn't help a small laugh. "Yeah, figures that for a six-billion-year-old being twenty-four years would feel like a wink."

" _It does. Where is the Doctor?_ "

Rose's good humour evaporated. "He's gone" she said quietly. "Trapped inside a parallel world to save me."

" _And you won't allow yourself to seek a past version of him_ " the Face of Boe observed.

Rose swallowed. "Not that I wasn't tempted, but I've learned my lesson about paradoxes. I can't ever let him know it's me if I meet him again."

" _Perhaps. And perhaps it is better this way; it is fitting that it would be you who become the instrument of my end._ "

"What do you mean, the instrument of your end?" Rose asked, bewildered.

" _There isn't much power left in me, and I can't force it through to reopen the city; but you can assist me there._ "

"And it's going to kill you." Rose said, horrified. "That's what you meant by 'instrument of your end', you want me to help you die. I can't do that!"

" _You must. It is one life for twenty million, and I have lived longer than them all combined. It is time for me to rest._ "

"I can't" Rose whimpered. "You're asking me to sacrifice you – I just can't!"

" _You would have sacrificed yourself for them if it could save them – you were ready to die for many times less in the hospital on the Moon_ " the Face of Boe said. " _You will just help me do the same._ "

Rose was now openly in tears. "I'm sorry. I can't!"

A furry hand came to rest on Rose's shoulder, and the young woman turned to look straight into Novice Hame's eyes. "Then let me carry this burden for you" the cat-nun said gently. "It's the least I can do, for all these people, and for my master."

Rose shook her head again. "I can't make you do this either" she whimpered.

"I have many dead on my conscience, as you well know, Rose Tyler" the cat-nun said, "all in the name of saving many more lives in the long run. My soul is already stained; it won't make a difference."

"I'd have to play a part in it even if I don't push the button" Rose replied. "I'd only be a coward if I make you do it for me."

" _You are no coward, Rose Tyler_ " the Face of Boe said kindly. " _And you have known for a long time that in dire circumstances, someone needs to make the hard decisions for everyone, like the Doctor once had to, that time he could save the world but lose you._ "

It finally hit Rose just how much the Face of Boe seemed to know about her – 10 Downing Street, the hospital on the Moon…

"How do you-"

" _For you, this is the last time we will meet when you don't know more about my future than I do about yours_ " the Face of Boe cut in, and Rose had the strange notion the ancient being was feeling… mischievous? But then it grew serious again. " _You will find out in due time. Our paths cross again often enough, and you must not already know about what happens when they do, because you didn't know what would happen when they did._ "

"I understand that."

The sound of steps behind alerted Rose to the approach of Martha, Milo and Cheen, the latter of which was now awake and still shaken, but no longer in full panic; her husband was too concerned with her state to really notice much else, but Martha had no such restraints. Her jaw dropped as she took in the Face of Boe's appearance.

"What is _that_?" she asked Rose, and then her head whipped back to stare at the Face of Boe. "You're speaking in my head!" she said with shock.

"He's a telepath" Rose supplied, "that's how he communicates."

"Inside my _head_?"

"So is the TARDIS when she helps you understand different languages."

Martha gave Rose a flat look. "That's different. The TARDIS-"

"Is very much sentient and capable of thought, and she's got quite the temper, by the way, so I wouldn't think that way about her when we get back to… When we get back to…"

Rose turned back to the Face of Boe. "The TARDIS. Does she have the power to help reopen the city?"

" _She does not_ " the Face of Boe replied definitively. " _I am the only one here who can._ "

Rose deflated for an instant; then she straightened up. "Would the Bad Wolf be able to?" she asked tensely.

" _It would kill you, and you cannot die here without causing a massive paradox_ " came the stern reply.

"Time can be rewritten."

" _Not to that extent. You don't know enough about its laws yet to try it._ "

"I'm not a Time Lady" Rose said sharply. "You should know better than most."

" _The Time Lords are the ones who usurped the appellation; they do not rule time as much as they are ruled by it. The Bad Wolf does – at a horrendous cost, and that is why you need to learn its laws. There will come a moment for which this is crucial._ "

"And how would I even learn about the laws of Time? There are no Time Lords left!"

" _Quite the opposite, and this is why your continued existence is so crucial, Rose Tyler. One who would usurp your title is yet free, moving in concealment._ "

Rose shook her head. "The Doctor would have known. He could have sensed him in his mind."

" _He is concealed, and biding his time until he can strike, and at the same time unaware that he is doing so._ "

"That doesn't make any sense!"

" _It will after you've seen the Arch_ " came the reply, along with a warning: " _Do not try to make sense of it until then, you will not be capable._ "

"I understand better why the Doctor called you textbook enigmatic" Rose grumbled.

"What are you two fighting about anyway?" Martha cut in. "You being called a Time Lady again?"

"Least of our worries" Rose replied sourly, "we've got a bigger fish to fry. One of us has to sacrifice themselves to save the people trapped in the undercity and on the motorway; we're disagreeing on who."

Martha looked at Rose and then the Face of Boe, a look of disbelief on her face. "Oh no. No, no, no. Two big heads like yours, you've got to find a better solution."

" _There is not_ " the Face of Boe said inside Martha's head. " _And there is scant time left to save everyone. I am fading already._ "

"Rose has a time machine" the young woman objected. "She could leave right now and return five seconds later for you, but after she's gone and found the kind of energy source you need."

"I might fail to do it and never return" Rose countered. "If we leave, twenty million lives keep hanging in the balance."

"And with the whole of space and time at your disposal, you don't think that the kind of energy source you need would lie around somewhere?"

"I don't know where to look!" Rose cried out. "I could spend decades out there bumbling around and never find what the people of New New York need me to and just die – maybe even of old age!"

" _And you would have to stop looking for a way to bring the Doctor back_ " the Face of Boe added for Rose, who returned a venomous look.

"This isn't the time to worry about my feelings!"

" _No, it is about who is the most important person in this universe, and you are tied for number one._ "

"That's nonsense, the Doctor is the most important person in this universe, even if he can't reach it."

" _It is a two way tie_ " the Face of Boe insisted, " _one between you and one other you already know about._ "

"I'm not more important than anyone else in this room."

"You are." It was Milo, still supporting a shaken Cheen. And the young man kept going. "Look at what has become possible just because you travelled here."

"You're all alive thanks to the Face of Boe" Rose shot back.

"Sorry, but that's not good enough – you've seen what it's really like down there. Our people can't stay stuck on the motorway forever, and the longer it lasts, the more people will get desperate like Cheen and I were. And it's plain from the bits and pieces of your conversation that time's running out, and somehow it means that one of you's going to have to give up their life if you're going to free all the others who're still stuck down in the undercity and on the motorway."

"To save their lives" Novice Hame cut in. "My master is fading; and unless something is done before he dies, this entire city will sink into the sea."

"He's not going to die" Rose said grimly.

" _I am dying either way_ " the Face of Boe said in her head. " _And as much as I enjoy your company, I would rather make that journey on my own._ "

Rose shook her head. "The Bad Wolf could do something about that too."

"Why _would_ the Bad Wolf kill you?" Martha asked pointedly. "You left that part out when you explained to me what you did that one time on the game station."

The reply came from the Face of Boe. " _She took the entire Time Vortex into her head, and essentially became a Goddess of Time and Space. But the power is too much for anyone to handle – it was tearing her body apart, and would have killed her had the Doctor not taken it out of her, and he too nearly died in the process._ "

"All of time and space in a human head" Martha breathed. "I can see why that would kill a woman – even an exceptional one like Rose."

Said Rose sent the Face of Boe a dark look. "Thank you _so_ much."

"What does that make you", Milo inquired, "some sort of Goddess?"

"Only if she does something stupid again and in the moments before she dies, yes" Martha supplied.

"So once she becomes that, that's it" the young man continued, stepping away from his wife and towards the two women out of their time. "She dies, and Mister Face stays here."

"That's the point" Rose said stubbornly.

"Then how about the people you have yet to save?" Novice Hame said in a voice laced with pain. "The people who live here will be saved either way, but if the Bad Wolf dies now, the rest of the universe stands to lose. Even if he lives on a little longer, my master cannot watch over all of space and time."

"I know that" Rose breathed. "It's just – you're asking me to kill him."

"Have you never killed one to ensure more than one lives?" the cat-nun asked.

Rose was about to reply negatively – when she remembered the impossible planet orbiting a black hole, the rocket, the nail gun she'd used to send Tony, the young man possessed by the Beast, to his death alongside the entity that possessed him. She _had_ done it.

"I don't really have a choice, do I" she said in a shaking voice. "I have to kill an ancient and beautiful being with unparalleled knowledge because it's better for the universe in the long run."

" _I was never meant to live this long_ " the Face of Boe said in her head. " _This is why I feel wrong to your senses – something happened to me that wasn't natural and violates the laws of time. You will only be setting that right by releasing what energy I have left._ "

"Which is what's left after – wait a minute." Rose stared at the Face. "You've been replacing this city's power generators for twenty-four years like it'd been plugged on some kind of giant battery?"

The Face of Boe sent the equivalent of a mental shrug. " _A tremendous amount of energy got poured into me._ "

"Yeah, enough to crack the planet open had it all been released at once. You've been a walking, er, a gliding ten-teraton H-bomb in a tank for six billion years!"

" _There never was a risk of explosion, I was made to last_ " the Face replied, not without humour.

"Yeah, right…"

" _You seem to be getting used to the idea_ ".

Rose glared at the Face of Boe. "I don't have a choice, do I?"

" _You do_ " the Face replied. " _But I know you, Rose Tyler. You don't make the easy or the selfish choice; you make the right one, when no one else will._ "

"Another perk of replacing the Doctor" Rose said bitterly.

" _He never wanted to have to make those choices either_ " the Face of Boe pointed out. " _And that is why you and he can be trusted with them – neither of you desire the kind of power you have over trillions of trillions of lives. You just want to do good where you can._ "

"I know…" Rose said grimly. She turned to look at the rest of the group – Martha, stalwart and resolute; Milo, so determined to see something done; Cheen, so awed and just daring to hope; Novice Hame, patiently waiting for a decision.

Rose swallowed. She turned back to the Face of Boe, staring at it for a moment. "They will all know what you've done for them" she said eventually in a thick voice.

" _They don't need to_ ".

"No, but they owe it to you to remember."

" _They will also remember you, Time Lady._ "

"I know. I just wish it were someone else they remember instead of me."

* * *

Thomas and Valerie Brannigan were as surprised as the rest of the travellers of the motorway when a young blonde woman appeared on their screen, addressing them calmly.

"Sorry everyone, I'm not Sally Callipso; I'm Rose Tyler, speaking on behalf of the Face of Boe, who is just now opening the motorway so you can finally leave."

"Leaving the motorway? What is that girl on about?" Thomas said.

"Look!"

The cat-man followed his wife's gaze and saw the bright light shining at that end of the motorway, slowly progressing towards them as the tunnel's ceiling opened.

Husband and wife grinned at each other. "This is incredible" Thomas said while his wife reached behind them; she handed two of the kittens to him, and Thomas held them out in front of him. "Your first sunlight! Oh yes, children, we're leaving the motorway!"

* * *

"We're leaving the motorway" a man in a bowler hat echoed with wonder, mesmerized as the blonde woman on the screens kept talking.

"The automated systems will keep running just long enough to make sure everyone can leave the motorway safely. Out there, it's going to be a whole new world for you to discover, a world where the bright light of the sun shines over vast meadows of apple-grass – or it will soon, sorry everyone, I'm afraid it's been quite the rainy day out there over New New York.

"Anyway, everyone, drive up, drive safe; and everyone, remember it was the Face of Boe who made this possible. Remember it was the Face of Boe who saved your lives and set you free."

"A whole new world to discover" the man in the bowler hat mused. "She and that Face of Boe are giving this to us – but why is that woman so sad?"

* * *

The answer to that lay on the floor of one of the Senate's chambers along with the Face of Boe, whose tank had ruptured from the surge of power Rose had set loose. And it had somehow transformed the ancient being in such a way that he no longer grated at the young woman's senses. The Face of Boe felt normal; and it was dying.

"I'm so sorry" Rose said with tears in her eyes, kneeling beside it and gently caressing the creased visage. "I wish I could have done this in your stead."

"You are worth dying for, Rose Tyler" the Face rasped, its voice trailing the words.

"It is said the Face of Boe will speak his final secret to a traveller" Novice Hame cut in from besides Rose.

"I already have" the Face said. "The Time Lady knows – or she will after she's seen the Arch."

"Not a Time Lady" Rose protested, but her heart wasn't in it.

"You have been – you will be" the Face strained to say, before it let out a deep sigh. "It's good to breathe the air once more."

And then the Face of Boe never breathed again.

* * *

Martha had kept quiet while she had watched Rose discuss arrangements with the young couple and Novice Hame, then record another message telling those who wished to help rebuild New New York to seek out Novice Hame and work with her. "That's what every city needs, cats in charge" the blonde woman had quipped, but once again, the humour didn't quite reach her eyes.

The medical student hadn't been surprised either when her companion had called back the TARDIS around them, nor when she had proceeded to quietly move about its controls. The journey hadn't been a smooth one – Rose had obviously been too distracted to remember about the stabilizers – but Martha couldn't hold that against her companion. The death of the Face of Boe clearly weighed heavily on the young woman, and Martha couldn't fault Rose for wanting to be on her own again, at least for a while.

Certainly, she'd have loved to keep traveling through space and time a bit longer, unexpected dangers notwithstanding. But for now, Martha was home, and had something to look forward to, if…

"I am going to see you again, am I not?" she called back to the young woman standing in front of the blue box.

"You are." Rose smiled. "You're good at this stuff, you know – better than I was when I got started."

Martha laughed. "Please, I bet you saved the world on the day you met your Time Lord."

"I didn't- I mean-" Rose spluttered.

"You totally did!"

"I didn't bring the anti-plastic!"

Martha grinned victoriously. "See? Better than you think you are!"

"And you're probably the right amount of impossible to make a good companion" Rose groused.

"You're still coming back, aren't you?"

Rose smiled again, a bit wanly this time. "Yeah, I'll come back. I just need…"

"I understand" Martha said kindly. "You've been through a lot in those two days; you need some time."

"Yeah…"

The ringing of Martha's home phone cut through the silence before it could become awkward. The medical student glanced at it. "It'll wait" she said, "it's only mum".

"Mums are very important" Rose said without thinking.

"I'll call her as soon as you're off."

"I'll be back tonight for you – and before you ask, it's the morning after I picked you up."

"I've got a shift at the hospital, won't leave much time to pack" Martha said while her mum was talking on the answering machine, but she was ignoring that.

Not Rose, though. "You have a sister who's famous enough to be on TV?"

Martha chortled. "Not really that famous. She's got a PR job with a big pharmaceutical company, I guess that's what that is about."

"Well, I'm interested" Rose said with a tongue-touched grin. "Come on, any sister of yours has got to be awesome."

Martha quirked her eyebrows, but gave in and switched on the TV. Her sister was on, but standing behind and to the side of an elderly man who was talking, a Professor Lazarus, according to the caption below him.

"Tonight, I will demonstrate a device like no other any of you has seen before" the man said, and Rose snorted. "With the push of a single button, I will change what it means to be human."

Martha switched the TV off with a grimace. "So much for Tish being on TV."

"She might have introduced that segment and we'll have tuned in too late" Rose offered. "And Tish?"

"Patricia" Martha supplied. "And it's not like any of this is news – that's what you are really getting me out of if you pick me up tonight, by the way, attending a rather boring soirée for the introduction of yet another ineffective and very expensive device to make you appear younger than you really are."

"You'll change your mind after you spot the first grey hair" Rose said teasingly.

Martha groaned. "What makes you so sure I'm older than you anyway?"

"Medical student near the end of her cursus? Safe to assume you're older than twenty-two" Rose said, grinning.

Martha looked at her in shock. "You're twenty-two?" Then she blushed. "Sorry, I didn't mean – it's just that with all your experience and your outlook on – oh God, I shouldn't be going there, I'm sorry – but still – twenty-two?"

"Bit young to be carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, aren't I?" Rose said, and then she grimaced. "Not that I should boast about it or anything."

"She says after saving yet another world" Martha said tartly. "It's not boasting, it's what you do. The Bad Wolf, that mad girl in a box traveling through time and space and saving the day wherever she goes until she gets reunited with her alien boyfriend."

Rose winced. "Don't."

"That's who you are, though, and it's one lovely story. Can't wait to have kids to tell that one to."

"That's it, I'm going" Rose said huffily, and Martha laughed.

"Just don't forget to pick me up before I have to go to that party!" she shouted at Rose as the blonde woman opened the TARDIS' door and stepped in. The blonde spun around and stuck her tongue at Martha.

"I'm tempted to make a mistake with the day just so you don't get out of it" she said tartly.

Martha winced. "I learned my lesson with the stabilizers, thanks. Please don't make me attend?"

"I won't" Rose said with a smile. "I'll see you tonight."

She closed the door, and Martha watched the blue box with wonder, already looking forward to her next travels through time and space with the mad, formidable young woman who was now vanishing alongside her box, and-

"Hang on!" Rose's voice called from the bedroom. "Did that Lazarus guy actually say he would change what it means to be human?"

* * *

 **A/N:** Well, this one was always coming, wasn't it?

Took me a while to muddle through this one – didn't have much time, and had to make a few decisions, what with a certain character knowing a lot more than he should. At least I know where I'm going for a good long while…! I might come back to revisit this later on, that said.

Thanks to **DuShuZhi** , **TheDoctorMulder** and **Bad Wolf Jen** for the reviews. I'm noticing this is quietly picking up follows, that's nice to see.

Next up, The Lazarus Experiment. Minus a science geek.


	7. VI - The Lazarus Experiment

**A/N:** Somehow, I still don't own any of this.

* * *

 **VI.** **The Lazarus Experiment**

* * *

Martha was a bit apprehensive as she and Rose mingled at Professor Lazarus' reception, expecting something to go wrong at any moment – which, to be fair to her, tended to happen whenever Rose Tyler expressed an interest in something. But so far, the worst that had happened were a few raised eyebrows at the medical student's choice of plus one (she had to admit Rose _did_ look stunning in her simple black, strapless gown – and heels, but those were removable to get fairly acceptable running shoes), and her quirky companion making a serious dent in the caviar, earning herself a few disapproving looks ("What? I love a good nibble" had been the younger woman's explanation).

And then Tish joined her. "Something I need to know?" Martha's sister teased.

"Yeah, I've made a gluttonous friend."

Rose made an adorable pout, and Tish burst into laughter. She held out her hand. "Patricia Jones, I'm Martha's sister. Nice to see someone is out to make her go just as insane as she made me go when we were kids."

"Oh, she gives as good as she gets" Rose replied with a tongue-touched grin (Martha harrumphed). "Rose Tyler, nice to meet you" she added, shaking Tish's hand.

"You look gorgeous" Tish said as she turning to her sister and proceeded to hug her. "So, what do you think? Impressive, isn't it?"

"Must be, just a little tough to take in when someone is trying their best to drive me mad" Martha replied tartly, and Rose made a point of feigning innocence.

"And that makes two nights out in a row for you, now that I think about it" Tish said teasingly. "That's dangerously close to having a social life."

"I might end up in a gossip column" Martha said sarcastically.

"You just might" Tish replied. "Watch out for any photographers."

"I've got that covered if it really bothers you" Rose cut in, drawing a snort from Tish.

"High opinion of herself, your friend."

Martha smiled. "If she says she can do it, she probably can do it" the medical student said, receiving an incredulous look from her sister for it. "That hospital on the Moon incident" Martha continued, "Rose is the one who got us out of it."

"That's quite the exaggeration" Rose mumbled, looking down. "Only sped things up a bit."

"And got hurt for it, Martha told us" Tish commented. "Our mum's going to want to talk to you – she's here, by the way, and even managed to drag Leo in."

Martha looked at her sister with mirth. "She did?"

"Oh yes."

"Oh, Leo in a black tie – this I _have_ to see."

"One tormented younger brother, coming up" Rose quipped, mimicking a server.

Tish snorted. "Not with mum around, he won't be. And I should really continue circulating" she added with an apologetic look at her sister.

"I'm glad I'm not the one who has to spend half their evening smiling at all sorts of pompous people" Martha remarked.

"What's the project your boss is showing off, by the way?" Rose asked. "That equipment on the stage looks remarkably advanced. But I'm curious about how this Professor Lazarus thinks he can use sound to change what it means to be human."

"Science geek?" Tish quipped, looking at her sister. "I should have figured that would be your type."

Martha glared at her. "What are you implying?"

Tish laughed. "You think about it, Martha" she said merrily. "I've got to go, I'm in charge of this thing after all."

Tish walked away, leaving behind a huffing Martha. "The nerve of her" she said to Rose.

"But that was so touching, Martha" Rose teased. "I'm sorry though, my heart's already taken."

"And don't I know it" came a voice from behind her. Rose spun to find herself facing a woman wearing a cream robe cut very similarly to hers, older than her but quite beautiful, her well-defined visage surrounded by long, curly hair. "Hello, sweetheart" the woman said with a grin; and then, to Martha: "Professor River Song, nice to meet you."

"Martha Jones" the medical student replied, eyes gleaming with mirth. "Shoe's on the other foot, Miss Wolf" she added for Rose, who spluttered an indignant reply.

"I don't even know who she is!"

"She just said, Professor River Song" Martha quipped. The professor, however, didn't share her good humour; the look she was now levelling at Rose was filled with concern.

"Is there someone so dangerous listening that you have to pretend not to know me, Rose?" she asked quietly.

"I'm not pretending" Rose protested, "I have no idea who you are."

"You're the one who called me here" the professor dismissed; and then, with a note of urgency: "Where's the pretty boy, then? He wouldn't miss that kind of event – first human to alter themselves by resonating their own molecular structure, he'd have to be around."

Rose's eyes narrowed, glinting a bit beneath her contacts. "Who _are_ you?" she asked very quietly to the professor, who let out an exasperated sigh.

"You can be so difficult at times" the woman said. "Where _is_ the Doctor, then, so that we can get to the comparing of timelines? It's always such a bother to go through this process twice, and we can only absent ourselves from the reception for so long if we want to be back in time for the demonstration."

"I'm not going anywhere with you" Rose said coldly while Martha tensed near her. "I did not call you here, the Doctor is not around, and I have no idea who you are, although I'm beginning to think I really should correct the oversight. I'd also much prefer this didn't turn unpleasant, Professor, so I'll ask one last time: who are you?"

The professor returned Rose a look of disbelief. "You've always known me. And this can't be the first time we met no matter where we are in your timeline when you have to be the one who called me here."

Rose glared at the woman. "Again, I did not call you here."

"Only you and the Doctor know my complete name" Professor Song insisted, "so if he isn't here, you're the only one who could have sent the message to my psychic paper."

"Gee, life as a time traveller must really mess with one's head if it makes people fail to notice the obvious" Martha cut in, her acerbic words catching the professor's attention.

"And what am I supposed to be missing, o great companion?" the woman snarked.

"That either a later version of Rose who _does_ know you asked you here, or there's at least one other person who knows your real name and tricked you" Martha said bluntly. "Either way, this Rose doesn't know you. Now care to answer her questions, or are you leaving?"

The professor just stared at Martha for an instant. Then she chuckled, though her mirth didn't quite reach her eyes. "I've heard quite a bit about you from Rose before, Miss Jones, but she never hinted that you'd have so much spunk."

"Shouldn't we be having this conversation elsewhere?" Rose said with clear annoyance.

The professor nodded. "We can talk later; demonstration time isn't too far off, and I don't think either of us wants to miss that."

"We can do that" Rose replied flatly.

"One more thing, though" River Song said, looking gravely at Rose. "Is this a good moment to ask?"

Rose glared at the professor. "What is that question supposed to even mean?"

Professor Song stared at Rose in shock for an instant. Then she walked away with a pained look on her face.

"Well, that was interesting" Martha let trail, then she smiled. "At least now you know you live long enough to meet that woman in the future and she ends up calling you sweetheart and calling the Doctor pretty boy."

"Wonderful" Rose said sarcastically, "I've discovered I live long enough to meet someone who tries to drive the both of us- the both of us…" Rose stopped, a shocked expression seeping onto her traits. "I'm with the Doctor in the future" she breathed.

"Yes, you are" Martha said, still smiling.

Rose grinned. "This day is fantastic."

"It's also going to see me scolded" Martha said, looking away from Rose.

"Why would it?"

Martha didn't answer; she just ran and hugged a middle-aged black woman who looked quite surprised by the sudden display of affection.

"Mum!"

Martha's mother returned the hug. "What's the occasion?" she asked as the two separated.

"What do you mean? I'm just pleased to see you, that's all."

"You saw me last night" Martha's mother remarked.

"I know… I just missed you" Martha breathed, and then she turned to the tall young man next to her mother. "You're looking good, Leo!"

Martha's brother snorted. "Yeah… If anyone asks me to fetch 'em a drink, I'll swing for him."

"Can't ask a handsome young man if they would get them a refreshment, then?" Rose cut in, a tongue-in-teeth grin playing on her face.

"You're terrible, you know that" Martha said tartly, and then she returned to her family. "Mum, Leo, meet Rose Tyler, a good friend of mine."

"Is that who you disappeared with last night?" Martha's mother asked.

"Guilty" Rose said easily, holding out a hand which Martha's mother shook gingerly.

"Francine Jones, and this is my son Leo."

"Black bowtie, not tie" Rose remarked as she shook hands with the startled young man. "Martha was so looking forward to the tie."

"Why, you-" Martha spluttered, and Rose laughed happily.

"Well, your friend seems to be an interesting one, I'll give you that" Francine said.

"You have no idea. That's the woman who saved everyone at the hospital, by the way, before you hear it from Tish."

"Doesn't look like much of a saviour."

Rose smiled. "Did Martha remember to say she saved _my_ life that day when she retold the story?"

Francine arched her eyebrows. "She didn't. Part of her job description, though, almost being a Doctor? Speaking of which", and Martha's mother turned stern as she addressed her daughter, "you're almost there, just because you've made a friend of sorts doesn't mean now's the time to start gallivanting."

"I know, mum" Martha said, rolling her eyes.

"You'd have gone home and studied last night _and_ gotten a proper night of sleep had you known."

"Actually, we ended up covering a couple of subjects directly related to medicine" Rose chimed in, "origins of the Hippocratic Oath for one, spread of behaviour-altering substances in the lower strata of society for the other."

Eyebrows shot up again. "You're a medical student too?"

"More of a student of history, really" Rose replied easily, "just got a few other interests."

Francine snorted. "Like stomping through hospitals invaded by a herd of space rhinoceros, apparently."

"Right place at the right time?"

"Wasn't coincidental according to Martha" the older woman said sharply, "you were exactly where you wanted to be, dragged her into your mess and almost got her killed."

"Mum!"

"Don't deny it, Martha, not when that girl is lying to my face and you know it. Now" and Francine returned her attention to a stunned Rose, "I don't care if you have good reasons to lie about what you really do or not, you're staying away from my daughter. She's a medical student, not a MI agent working for the Aliens branch, and you should know better than to involve ordinary people in your kind of business."

Rose blinked. "Alright, ma'am." And she walked off, leaving Francine Jones with a stunned son and a fuming daughter.

"What was that for?" Martha shot, earning herself a flat look from her mother.

"Don't you get started, Martha, I've already got half a mind to grab you two and Tish and run the hell away from here before whatever this Rose of yours is really here for blows up in our faces."

"Nothing wrong is going to- happen" Martha protested, with the slightest hesitation as she remembered how that Professor Song had claimed Rose had called her there when Rose said she hadn't.

It was enough of a hesitation for Martha's mother to pick up. "I should have known" she said sharply. "Come on, we're going to get Tish and we're walking out."

"Tish isn't going to walk away, mum" Martha snapped, "she put this whole thing together. And listen, she's calling for attention right now."

Tish was, ringing a glass which chimed over suddenly muted conversations and attracted eyes in the direction of Professor Lazarus. The aged man was standing on a podium in front of a white cabin surrounded by four mobile vertical elements.

"Ladies and gentlemen" he called, "I am Professor Richard Lazarus, and tonight, I'm going to perform a miracle. It is, I believe, the most important advance since Rutherford split the atom, the biggest leap since Armstrong stood on the Moon." Rose's eyes narrowed.

"Not very modest, is he?"

The whisper had come from Professor Song, who had made it back to Rose's side without the young woman noticing.

"Trying to listen" Rose hissed.

"Sorry."

But Lazarus said nothing else to hint at his intentions. He stepped inside the cabin, and the door slid shut on him. Technicians in the back of the room set to work at a controlled pace, and the pillars around the cabin started to circle it, visible energy lines arcing from each and joining at the top of the cabin.

"That's your cue" Professor Song mumbled.

"Why would it be?" Rose hissed back.

"Are you so distracted that you're missing the obvious?"

"What am I missing?"

The older woman stared at the younger one. "What _is_ going on with you?"

"Sorry not to live up to your lofty-" A screeching noise forced the bite out of Rose's last word – "expectations."

Alarms blared, and the ballet of technicians turned into a frantic scramble while the assemblage panicked and tried to run from the exits.

"Are you even Rose Tyler?" Professor Song ventured, and she continued in response to the glare levelled at her. "The Rose I know would have long since identified that this sonic resonance device was dangerously badly constructed and done something about it."

"While you'd be content to sit on the sidelines?"

Professor Song's voice grew heated. "Will you just shut up and do something about this, or would you rather admit you're a fraud and then shut up?"

Rose let out a frustrated groan and turned her attention to the machine and to the technicians screaming how it was now entirely out of control and-

"It's going to explode!"

Then Rose did something extremely foolish. She drew upon her time sense to spot an interval between the spinning columns, used it to dive for the central contraption, drawing her sonic screwdriver, flattened herself as she landed and activated the screwdriver.

The cabin exploded, its blast redirected upwards by Rose's efforts and sparing the panicking attendance, while the out-of-control columns went sailing above their heads and crashed through the walls. The upper floors, however, weren't designed to endure such force; the blast damaged several of them, weakening their structure enough that the upper parts of the building were no longer supported.

There was nothing Rose could do to help anyone else; only time to brace herself and move where her time sense told her she would have a chance to stay alive as the upper floors collapsed upon the witnesses of Professor Lazarus' "miracle".

* * *

The rumble; noise, deafening noise; the quaking of the floor; the whoosh of air displaced in powerful gusts as columns, floors and walls crashed down; the dust, billowing up, rising everywhere; the hail of debris and of shattered glass, pelting the precarious shelter forming above Rose's head; the booming sounds of more heavy parts crashing on top of those present; and again, the quaking, the shaking, one sense knowing that she was safe when all her other senses told her "this is it".

But this _wasn't_ it. For the moment, the world was running out of slabs of concrete to bombard Rose's chance shelter with – even, it appeared, gradually running out of debris. Yet the world didn't run out of sounds. As small elements trickled and dislodged more pieces of debris, voices made themselves heard, some more muffled than others, some calling, some screaming, some…

… -one coughing in her face?

"Professor Song! You alright?" Then it was Rose's turn to hack up, her respiratory system protesting the presence of so much dust around her that it had coated the professor entirely, as well as every part of Rose that she could still see.

"What the hell was that?" Professor Song eventually managed, glaring at Rose in the dust-rich semi-obscurity. "Why didn't you even try to fix this?"

Another deep cough, a rattling of her throat, and Rose managed to breathe out a quiet but furious reply. "I'm a twenty-two year old ex-shop worker who didn't even pass her A-levels" she said, and she returned the glare. "What gave you the idea I could understand what was going on with something so bloody complicated?"

Professor Song's glare morphed into an utterly shocked look, which Rose misinterpreted. "I know, my eyes, they're glowing – give me an instant and they won't. And no, I'm not telling you why."

"Oh God" the professor let out.

"And save any other questions for later" Rose added waspishly, before she started coughing again.

"It's not that- I can't-" the other woman let trail, before changing her train of thoughts. "We've got to get out of here."

"We're sort of pinned under tons and tons of rubble" Rose snapped as the professor squirmed and, from the sounds of it, was rending part of her dress. Then-

"Got it" the other woman said triumphantly, and she produced a very familiar-looking-

"Squareness gun!" Rose stared at the weapon. "Where did you get that?"

"Spoilers" Professor Song replied distractedly, levelling her weapon at the floor. "We've got to get out of here first; can't do anything to help before we help ourselves." A familiar display, followed by the disappearing of a section of the floor, revealing an underground laboratory lit by small fires and filled with shattered equipment. "Should be good enough to get the TARDIS here, we can work things out from there."

"How do you know I can call the TARDIS?" Rose asked, dumbfounded.

"Spoilers" was the tired response. "Just call her. We've got little time to waste if my suspicions are founded."

Rose blinked, then took hold of the other woman, only to realize she was already being held onto. She concentrated, and the TARDIS materialized around the two women, and Professor Song let go.

And swore. "Of course the instruments would all be different. How do these sensors even work?"

"I'll handle them" Rose said quietly. "Just tell me what you wanted to do."

"Locate Professor Lazarus" River Song said, and Rose stared at her.

"There's no way he could have survived that explosion" she said flatly.

"The blast was directed away from him, and he was inside that blender of his long enough that he could have considerably altered his own molecular structure – and not in a predictable way. He could be mincemeat, but he could also be perfectly healthy."

"So I just have to search for altered human DNA structures" Rose said, moving to the consoles.

"Exactly." The professor frowned. "Please tell me you know how to do that."

"I'm not _completely_ useless, Professor Song" Rose said waspishly as her fingers flew over the controls, and said professor shot her an apologetic look.

"That's really not what I meant" she said, "it's just that this is such an unfamiliar situation for me – and I can't even tell you why."

"You've already said quite a lot" Rose replied, looking at her screens with a frown, "and there's something else you might want to explain, spoilers or not."

"I can't promise that I can answer, but fire away."

"The TARDIS' scanners detect three different individuals with altered human DNA. One of them is me, but I have a feeling you knew that. One of them is in the middle of the debris – you were spot on, by the way, it's got to be Professor Lazarus and he's alive."

"I was afraid of that" Professor Song interjected.

"Sometimes I hate being right too" Rose replied. "There's a third individual, too."

"Yes, me. And no, I can't tell you why."

"You're going to have to give me _something_ , Professor" Rose said quietly. "I already know you're from some point in my future and the Doctor is back, and that for you, it's been a long time since you met me. But I never met you before, and somehow you're here thinking I called you."

"I know you can't have now" the professor replied, just as quietly. "Which means something very wrong is going on – and something very dangerous, too."

"Big, mean paradox, yeah. Plus, someone who knows us both and would have called you here, and pretended to be me."

"Whoever it was, they know both your writing and one of your aliases" Professor Song said seriously, "and not the least significant either. They signed 'Bad Wolf' at the end of the message."

Rose stared at the other woman. "You know about Bad Wolf."

"And the game station on Satellite Five" the Professor added, "and what you did to get back there."

"Who told you?"

"Spoilers."

Rose groaned. "You're not going to give me hints regarding anything I may or may not have been involved in, are you?"

"I can't" the professor said wearily. "The wrong word in the wrong place could cause an entire causal nexus to collapse, and the results of that are never pretty. I've already told you far too much as it is."

Rose snorted. "Well, at least you're a responsible time traveller. There's just this little issue about knowing I find the Doctor again when I'm really not supposed to, and it's not like I have a Time Lord's ability to make myself forget what I need to forget to preserve timelines."

"No, but I know of at least one device on the TARDIS that can completely suppress those memories – but that's not going to help anybody if you have to keep traveling until you find the Doctor or he finds you."

"What device?"

"Chameleon arch" Professor Song supplied, earning herself a stare, which she misinterpreted. "I know, name's completely ridiculous, but that's fairly common with the pair of you and always a lot more complicated than it sounds."

"This Chameleon arch, what does it do?" Rose asked quietly.

"Rewrites a Time Lord's biology and suppresses their memory."

Rose frowned. "Then it's not of any use to me."

"I know it works on you, actually – only problem is I only know how to use it to turn you back to human, and that's not really going to help us preserve the timelines."

"I'd rather like to be human again" Rose said softly, tilting her head down.

This time, it was River Song who stared. "What happened to you? That's not the Rose Tyler who risks it all to do what she knows is right."

Rose laughed humourlessly. "She lost the Doctor, and then she realized just how lost she was without him, and how useless. Those people who died in the explosion, he'd have saved them all."

The other woman walked to Rose and gripped her by the shoulders, making her look up into her own eyes. "Look, I'm sorry I put so much pressure on you earlier-"

"- it wasn't your fault" Rose cut in, "I'm really not the Rose Tyler you know."

"That doesn't matter. What I was saying is that you're right, you're twenty-two, didn't even pass your A-levels and are completely out of your depth – and none of that matters, because you're Rose Tyler; you come in when everybody else would run off, you do what's right, sometimes you even make miracles happen, and above all, you never give up. And you're not giving up now, are you?"

"Of course not" Rose said with a hint of steel in her voice, disengaging herself from River Song's grip. "And we need to get a move on – there's people we can save; we can talk about that arch thing later."

"You do the saving people thing, just drop me off outside before then – someone's got to take a gander at what Lazarus did to himself. If there's one person who shouldn't have made it alive it's him." The professor grabbed something from her pocket and tossed it at Rose – a small, white plastic device with a circular part and then five green lights. "Fifty-first century communicator" the woman supplied as Rose was looking at it curiously. "Affix it somewhere close to your neck; picks up on your thoughts and relays them to others equipped with them. Tap to activate, tap again to deactivate."

"Got it" Rose acknowledged, clipping the device on her jacket's collar.

* * *

It was the hardest work Rose had ever done. She'd seen some horrible things already in her travels with the Doctor, but nothing like the maimed, the mangled and the moaning she did her best to retrieve and then deposit the wounded at the makeshift triage station that had organized outside, facing the astonished looks of rescue crews who witnessed the materializing of the blue police rescue box that was bigger on the inside.

A small mercy: UNIT wasn't called on the site in response to the TARDIS' – instead the Defence Minister himself showed up, the Harold Saxon whose face was everywhere on posters in London, who turned out to be an energetic, witty man everybody present seemed to be trusting. He quickly got the gawkers back to their life-saving work, and even supplied a team of soldiers to help her retrieve the wounded faster, asking only for a quick talk with Rose once she had rescued all she could rescue. A fair price, as far as the young woman was concerned, although it irked her a bit to have that talk still covered with dust, grime and blood while the man looked pristine. A concern quickly abated when she heard the minister's first, quiet words.

"I know why UNIT are after you" he said, instantly catching Rose's attention. "Their records say someone who looks exactly like you killed the owner of this time travel machine of yours in 1969."

Rose blanched. "They think I killed the Doctor?"

"At some point in your timeline, they just don't know when – yes, I know about your travels" he added with some excitement, "got to find out a lot about it from the Torchwood files – I'm the Defence Minister, after all, and I have to ask if you have any idea what happened to Yvonne Hartman, because I'd really like a chat with her, she made a number of oversights and should have known she's really in trouble and maybe ran off with-"

"She died a hero" Rose cut him off. "She was transformed into a Cyberman but managed to resist their programming. She died buying me and- me and the Doctor enough time to…" Rose swallowed, but she shook her head when Saxon made a gesture of comfort. "We did what had to be done."

"I know, and I must thank you properly and reward you for what you did then and what you did today."

"I didn't do it for-" Rose started to protest, but her words were drowned by a blood-curling screech.

"You monster! You freak! You murderer!"

Rose spun, and her eyes landed on an enraged Francine Jones, who was struggling to escape the grip of a couple of soldiers who had run up to her. "Madam, you have to stop!"

"Let me go! She killed my daughter! Let me at her!"

Behind a frozen Rose, the Minister made a hand gesture, and the soldiers proceeded to take the distraught mother away.

"No! Let me go! Let me go! She's a monster! She's the murderer! Take her! Take her!" the woman screamed, and screamed, and she continued to scream all the while she was taken away, away from an utterly shocked Rose Tyler, who was left staring in the direction Francine Jones had stood.

"I'm sorry" the Minister said, putting a hand on Rose's shoulder as a gesture of comfort.

"No, I am" Rose said thickly as a tear started running down her cheek. "I wish I'd known enough to save more people."

"You're not a Time Lord, Miss Tyler" Saxon said, "and you can't be expected to perform the same in all the crazy demented impossible insane situations a Time Lord calls Tuesday."

"I'd hate to know what Mondays are like for a Time Lord" Rose mumbled.

"Not amusing Queen Victoria after saving her from a werewolf?" the Minister supplied, and Rose was surprised to find herself smiling.

"Won that bet. Still owed ten quid."

"That must be quite the interesting story" Saxon said with a smile of his own, "but I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to save it for when I get around to organizing you getting that reward you're owed by my people – I've got quite a bit on my plate for now, you'll understand, and your curly friend is coming back."

"Curly?" Rose turned to look in the same direction as Saxon. "Oh, you mean Professor Song."

"She's still curly. Have a pleasant night, will you?" and the Minister kissed Rose's hand – and made a face because of the dust. "Blech. Sorry. You were on the job. My Lady."

Rose blushed a bit. "Minister Saxon."

The man walked off as River approached, a worried frown marring her traits. "We've got a small problem, Rose."

The blonde woman groaned. "Don't tell me. We've got a dragon on our hands."

"If by 'dragon' you mean 'gigantic four-legged skeletal fleshy thing ending with a human head on one end and a scorpion tail capped by a life-energy sucker on the other, yes."

"Fantastic" Rose said sarcastically, starting on her way back to the TARDIS, followed by River. "How many victims?"

"Just the two that I could find, the emergency medics who took him in. Poor blokes. Drained into husks."

"What do we do about it, then?"

"We're going to Church."

Rose gave River a flat look. "We're supposed to pray this problem away?" she asked disbelievingly, and River smirked.

"Nope, got my own do-it-yourself Goddess of Space and Time kit right here in London."

Rose stopped in front of the TARDIS and stared at the other woman. "You've got to be kidding me."

"And you've got to exercise that Bad Wolf 'muscle' if you're going to get used to doing those Bad Wolf things you do later" River said nonchalantly. "And it's not like the Vortex would kill you anymore now that you're no longer really human."

Rose was gaping at the woman. "Bad Wolf is a Goddess of Space and Time."

"All five feet five of you, yes" River replied, grinning. "After you've looked into the Heart of the TARDIS, re-rewriting modified human DNA's a piece of cake for you."

"Isn't there something else we can do?"

River's good humour vanished, replaced with an expression of pity. "There isn't. Neither you nor I know how to reverse what Lazarus did to himself, but clearly, whatever he did made him damn near immortal, and highly dangerous to boot. And Bad Wolf is the only sure way of dealing with this we have."

Rose stayed silent for a bit, mulling over what River had told her. Try as she might, though, she couldn't think of many other ways to stop such a hybrid creature as the professor had described; she knew just the one. And she was willing to do it – after all, no one else could.

But…

"I've got to give him a choice" Rose said quietly. "I can't just barge in and unleash all that power on him, or on anyone, just like that."

The last thing she'd have expected would be seeing River Song smile fondly at her. "Of course you can't. That's why you are Rose Tyler."

* * *

It was no monster that awaited in the pews of Southwark cathedral, though; it was a blonde human shrouded in some fabric – maybe a curtain – sitting on one of the wooden benches and speaking up as the two women approached.

"I came here before, Professor" the man said. "A lifetime ago. I thought I was going to die then. In fact, I was sure of it. I sat there, just a child… the sound of planes and bombs outside."

"The Blitz" Rose spoke up, and the man turned to look at her.

"You've read about it, girl" he noted.

Rose shook her head. "I was there."

"You're too young."

"So are you."

The man scoffed; but then there were sounds of popping and cracking, and his face twisted in pain.

"What have you done to yourself?" Rose asked, her pity not feigned.

"What I promised myself, back when I was a child" the man rasped – then he gave a cry of pain as more sinister cracking sounds rose from him. "I promised myself that I would never stay powerless against death."

"At the cost of how many lives?" River interjected, stepping up towards the man.

"It doesn't matter" the man replied harshly. "What are a few dozen or a few hundred lives compared with creating the future of mankind – a life without death."

"A life that needs to sustain on others."

"River" Rose said calmly, bringing the other woman to a stop. Then she addressed Lazarus. "Those men you drained dry, back at your laboratories. How many more will you attack the same way, before you decide to stop?"

"As many as necessary" Lazarus said, with more sinister cracking. "I'm the higher lifeform in the chain of evolution and on the food chain. I will consume and keep consuming humans for as long as necessary."

Rose sighed. "Even if you could change back?"

The man scoffed. "I have obtained eternal life and youth, why would I ever desire to change that?"

"Two reasons" Rose said. "To be human, and to not be alone in the universe."

"You understand neither" Lazarus replied through gritted teeth.

"You couldn't be more wrong" River said, her voice steely. "Trust me, there isn't anything worse for someone born human than having to live forever apart from mankind and having to watch one's loved ones age and die over and over again."

Lazarus sneered. "Neither being human nor having company matter when you have all of eternity in front of you. Why should I care?"

More cracking.

"Because if you want to stay like you are, Rose will have to stop you."

A bark of laughter. "This little girl, stop me? Where in spite of all your knowledge and tricks you, Professor Song, haven't been able to?"

The two women exchanged a glance. Rose gulped, and River Song nodded in response. "You will know how to let it go, because I've seen you do it" the older woman said.

"You will do nothing, because I will feed now" Lazarus growled – and then he cried as he went to the ground, his body contorting in pain and extruding the horrifying form Professor Song had told Rose about. The young woman found her resolve, and called the TARDIS to her, to find the panel exposing her Heart was already open, diffusing an all-too-familiar golden glow.

"I wish there were another way" River Song said, "but there isn't, not when there's no Doctor around and only me and young you."

"I know. I really wish he were here" Rose said quietly, and the older woman briefly hugged her.

"I'll watch over you while you recover – the old girl and I both will. We've done it before, isn't that right?" River Song added fondly, looking at the TARDIS' column, and the TARDIS pulsed in response. And that, more than anything said and done before, convinced Rose that she could trust Professor River Song absolutely.

The young woman walked determinedly to look into the Heart of the TARDIS for the second time in her life. She would not remember it any more distinctly than the first. And it did not end the way River Song thought it would.

* * *

Every time she'd seen Rose Tyler take on the powers of the Bad Wolf, Professor River Song had felt very small in comparison; this time in Southwark Cathedral was no exception in that respect. What was new to her was realizing that the twenty-two-year old Rose didn't just look the same as the ageless, almost mythical figure she'd known her as for almost all her life – she _was_ the same person she'd always known, who took a stand and did what was right when it was needed, and never asked anything for herself in return.

And even now, the formidable figure wreathed in gold, with all of space and time in the palm of her hand, was still very much Rose Tyler, not interested in doing anything more to Lazarus than revert the transformation the man had unwittingly brought upon himself. She left his artificial youth untouched, something for him to enjoy.

There was just one small annoyance – done with Lazarus, Rose had stumbled and faded in a swirling of golden dust, leaving the TARDIS and Professor Song behind with the piteously mewling man… and an unexpected spectator, in the person of Harold Saxon, Defence Minister, who clapped enthusiastically as he emerged from behind the time and space craft.

"Superb! Remarkable! Absolutely wonderful!" he said through his clapping, attracting himself a scowl from River Song.

"This wasn't a spectacle for your entertainment, Minister" the woman growled. "It's better that you don't wonder too much about what you've just seen – just call UNIT to handle Professor Lazarus and try to put what happened here outside your mind."

The clapping stopped, and the minister stepped forward daintily. "Oh, but this was very much spectacular – a grand demonstration, beyond anything I'd hoped to witness. And", and the smile turned a bit cruel, "listening to you, Professor River Song, one would almost believe what you really mean is 'what just happened here was not meant for human eyes'".

River suddenly felt very uneasy. "It really wasn't" she said guardedly. "That's why I brought up UNIT. They really should be the ones handling the clean-up, not the British Crown."

The minister kept approaching, and now River could see the manic glint in his eyes as he advanced on the prone form of Lazarus. "Neither are going to get involved." He took a glinting cylindrical object out of his pocket. "Not the British Crown, and certainly not UNIT, I like them nice and busy running after their wanted murderer and trying to figure out if the version of her they encounter has already done it – but you must know about all this already, don't you, foundling?" Saxon was grinning maniacally, eyes fixed on River as he halted right next to Lazarus.

Something was wrong, terribly wrong, wrong enough that River's finely honed instincts for danger told her to run. She made to access the vortex manipulator hidden by her sleeve – and stopped in the middle of her gesture, hit and paralyzed by a green beam from the little object Harold Saxon held.

"Laser screwdriver – because really, who wants sonic?" the man said happily. He turned the tool on Professor Lazarus, who screamed briefly as he was touched by a sickly yellow beam, and then disintegrated into dust. Then Saxon nonchalantly twirled the device, bringing his attention back to River.

"Modified human DNA, just really not the same way you were modified. Someone did a bang-up job of you, Pond – oh, yes, I know who you are. Don't startle." A bark of laughter. "Silly me, you can't jump in fright, you're paralyzed. And you've got gifts for me" Saxon went on, eyes glinting with malice as he approached a River Song terrified like she had never been before. "And I don't mean just the TARDIS, Melody Pond" he added, suddenly deadly serious. "There's a lot, lot more I can get out of you before I set my snares for your so-called Time Lady friend, like you are snared now, with just a little trick involving psychic paper." He grinned, sounding merry once more. "Oh, we're going to have so much fun getting ready for the Big Bad Wolf!"

There was nothing River could do – and really, she was in no state to think of anything, terrified as she was by Harold Saxon; whatever the "man" really was, he was not human, and far too knowledgeable and connected for her comfort. But why hadn't Bad Wolf done anything about him, or taken the TARDIS with her? All of time and space within reach, a mortal enemy right next to her, and somehow the all-powerful entity had not even reacted to someone River was beginning to think of as the most terrifying adversary she may have ever encountered…

* * *

 **A/N:** Busy, busy, busy! WTB: vacation!

I've been working on this one for an inordinate amount of time – in 20-minute increments whenever I could take them, so this episode is definitely going to get a pass-over at some point, especially the ending. Hopefully it's not too incoherent, but if this waited for more time to sit down I might not roll anything out until July, when I already have more than half of the work on the next two episodes done…

Enter River Song. And yes, the Library will be featured later on. And no, she didn't know this would happen anymore than that she was going to die in the Library in canon. She never was told exactly what was in her future, was she?

And of course, also enter the Master. Just a fair warning: the Master is _not_ a nice guy in this story by _any_ measure. He's deranged, an absolute genius, and Evil with a capital "E", and will be portrayed accordingly. And he definitely knows what he is doing - convoluted and grandiose as his plans might be.

Thanks a lot to you all for the response to the last chapter!

Re: **Bad Wolf Jen** – Rose made Jack this way, but he still grates on her (rudimentary) time senses, just like a preparation you made yourself could be unpleasant to your own senses as a side effect. And there's been a bit of setting up for the future here too ^^

 **Frostyhorse** – I'm a tad bit late… I definitely intend to keep this up, that said, and have more or less set down the ideas for three seasons and the 10th Doctor's specials.

Re: **DuShuZhi** – Writing a different story entirely was the whole point since the start, and it should be evident by now that 10th Doctor-canon is entirely thrown out the window. There will be familiar episodes again, but not necessarily in the same order, and of course not necessarily with the same outcomes.

 **Guest** – I'm still a tad bit late… Jack is of course intended to be featured in this "season". The Doctor has actually already popped up, and will pop up again. Where and when he does is your guess ^^

Re: **Lady Niona** – Thank you! That means a lot – this is, once again, intended to be a different story.

Re: **r. 92** – Exploring Rose's character was something I wanted to do – watching one's characters grow is quite the pleasure ^^

Next up, _Sanctuary Sparrow_. If anyone manages to guess when it is set with this title as the sole clue, I want to talk to them! :D


	8. VII - The Sanctuary Sparrow

**A/N:** I don't own anything _Doctor Who_ related. Nor do I own anything _Cadfael of Shrewsbury_ related, but I do encourage people who like Medieval literature and/or murder mysteries to check the series out. This chapter in particular is based on the eponymous novel by Ellis Peters.

* * *

 **VII.** **The Sanctuary Sparrow**

* * *

It began, as the greatest of storms do begin, as a mere tremor in the air, a thread of sound so distant and faint for the monks of the Abbey of St Peter and St Paul in Shrewsbury; yet so ominous that the ear that was sharp enough to catch it instantly pricked and shut out present sounds to strain after it again, and stiffened into responsive stillness, braced to listen. It could have been an innocent sound enough, or if not innocent of murderous intent, at any rate natural, the distant voices of hunting owls, or the predatory bark of a dog. Certainly the ferocious note of the hunt sounded clearly in it. And Brother Anselm the precentor, wholly absorbed into his chanting of the office, wavered and slipped off-key for an instant, and took up the cadence jealously, composing his mind sternly to duty.

For there could not be anything in it to trouble the midnight rite of Matins, here in this kindly spring, barely four weeks past Easter of the year of Our Lord 1140, with Shrewsbury and all this region secure within the King's peace, whatever contentions raged farther south between King and Empress, cousins at odds for the throne. The season promised well, the town enjoyed fair rule under a dour but just sheriff, and defended stoutly by a sensible provost and council. In a time of civil war, Shrewsbury and its shire had good cause to thank God and King Stephen for relative order. Not here, surely, should the conventual peace of Matins fear any disruption.

And yet, the tremor on the air became a faint, persistent murmur. In the dimness, to the right of the entrance to the choir, the tall, lean, hawkish figure of Abbot Radulfus stirred in his stall. To the left, Prior Robert's habit rustled briefly, with an effect of displeasure and reproof rather than uneasiness; just by this simple affect, the stern Norman monk, second in rank after the abbot, had sent a clear message to the rest of the Benedictine monks. The merest ripple of disquiet shivered along the ranks, and again subsided.

The sound, however, drew nearer very rapidly, hard to ignore, while the precentor continued valiantly leading his flock in the office, and raised his voice and quickened his tempo to ride over the challenge. The younger brothers and novices were shifting uneasily. The murmur had become a ferocious, muted howl. Even abbot and prior had leaned forward ready to rise from their stalls, and were exchanging questioning looks in the dimness.

With obstinate devotion Brother Anselm lifted the first phrase of Lauds. He got no farther. At the west end of the church the great parish door was suddenly hurled open to crash against the wall, and something unseen came hurtling and scrabbling and gasping down the length of the nave, reeling and fumbling and fending itself off from wall and pillar, heaving at breath as though run to death already.

They were on their feet, every man. The younger ones broke out in frightened exclamations, not knowing what to do. Abbot Radulfus was hampered by no such hesitation. He moved with speed and force, plucking a candle as he passed, and went striding out round the parish altar in great, loping strides that sent his gown billowing out behind him. After him went Prior Robert, slower as he was more tender of his dignity, and after Robert all the brothers in jostling agitation. Before they reached the nave they were met by a great, exultant bellow of triumph, and a rushing and scrambling of dozens of frenzied bodies, as the hunt burst in at the west door after its prey.

A quarter of the town perhaps was streaming in, and not the best quarter, though not necessarily the worst either; decent craftsmen, merchants, traders, jostled with the riff-raff always ready for any brawl, and all of them beyond themselves either with drink or excitement or both together, howling for blood. And blood there was, slippery on the tiles of the floor. On the three steps to the parish altar lay sprawled some poor wretch, subjected to the trampling, battering and the fists and boots raining in his general direction from so many attackers that comparatively few of their kicks and blows got home. All that could be seen of the quarry was a thin arm and a fist hardly bigger than a child's that reached out of the chaos to grip the edge of the altar-cloth with life-and-death urgency.

It literally was: by this gesture the quarry of this manhunt was desperately trying to claim sanctuary, his whimpered pleas drowned out by the cries of a mob well past caring that by shedding his blood on the altar they were committing terrible sacrilege and gravely imperilling their immortal souls – that is, until they were startlingly reminded of said by an explosion of golden light right above the poor wretch who had been begging for succour.

There was just as frantic and disorderly a scramble away from the laid-down man-child as there had been an attack, and men struggled to clamber and crawl away from the light, which now resolved into just as golden a silhouette of an angel, ignorant of the brothers and novices falling on their knees behind her in adoration, laying down the baleful flame of its gaze upon the men who had defiled the sanctity of a church in their hunt.

There were more cries, but not for blood; urgent pleas for forgiveness contested with praises to God in a cacophony that only went extinct after the witnesses to the miracle, townsfolk and abbey-folk alike, realized that the light had dimmed, and the strangely dressed young woman, no longer glowing with angelic light, lurched forward and collapsed, unconscious.

Abbot Radulfus, who'd kept his composure and determination during the entire incident, wasted no time. His voice was crisp and commanding as he smouldered upon the bewildered crowd, reducing them to silence with very little effort.

"I trust there will be no more affronts in the house of God tonight" he said, nostrils flaring.

There was one young man who wasn't quite cowed. He was tall, a little too well aware of a handsome face, and would have looked very elegant in festival finery, if his best cotte weren't crumpled from the turmoil of pursuit, and his face flushed red as a result of drinking a good deal of wine. Perhaps the spirits were inflaming his temper, too, and the boldness of his claims.

"My lord abbot, I will speak for us all – I have that right. This wretch staining this sacred place with his sinful presence we want for the robbery of my family's riches and for the murder of my father tonight, and now yourself may have reason to be wanting him for consorting with demons too – for certainly this _thing_ on the floor is no angelic visitation. If you will just let us, we will rid us all of them both."

The response expected certainly wasn't the abbot gesturing out at the assemblage of monks, who rose and formed ranks, and a barrier separating both young man and woman from the mob.

"You exceed yourself" the abbot said sharply. "Only one sin I know for certain has been committed, the shedding of blood upon those walls, and the burden of it lay entirely upon your shoulders. You had best be considering on the health of your own souls, and leave to the law – secular and ecclesial – what is to the law. And just where is secular law?" Radulfus asked, cutting off any chance of a reply. "I see no sergeant among you. Nor do I see the provost, who could at least speak for the town. I see a rabble, as far at fault in law as robber and murderer could be. Now leave this place, and pray that your offences will be pardoned, and lodge your secular complaints with sheriff or sergeant."

"My lord" ventured the youth in response, hoping to at least get who he'd come for, "the demon is yours by right, and we lay no further claim on it. But the wretch, we can rid you of, and take him hence and deliver him to the law."

"There will be no bartering over who shall go with whom" the abbot shot back. "You forfeited any chance of taking the young man to secular authorities the moment you charged him with evil consorting in front of me. He is this house's for the keeping twice – by right of sanctuary and by precedence of the gravest charge laid upon him. Now leave. Your business here tonight is concluded, and if there is anything further to be said, let it be tomorrow, in the presence of sheriff or sergeant if talk of murder and robbery there must also be."

There was nothing else for it. The crowd began to retreat sullenly, and the young man paused one more time on the threshold, for a parting shot: "Let me warn you, then, my lord. Should the wretch venture a step outside, we shall be waiting for him, and what falls out of your lordship's lordship will be no concern of yours, or the church's." Then he blanched, half from realizing just how far he'd gone with drink helping his talking, half from seeing how he'd only incensed the prelate he'd addressed further.

"And what of God's concern?" fell the reply. "Go hence in peace, before his bolt strike you."

They went, shadows edging backwards into shadow, through the open west door and out into the night, but not without parting glances towards the miserable bundle prostrate clutching the altar-cloth and the woman half-hiding him. Mob madness is not so easily subdued, and even if their grievance proved less than justified, it was real enough to them. Murder and robbery were mortal crimes, and demon worship was worse. No, they would not all go away. They would set a watch on the parish door and the gatehouse, with a rope ready.

"Brother Prior," said Radulfus, running an eye over his shaken flock, "and Brother Precentor, will you again begin Lauds? Let the office proceed, and the brothers return to their beds according to the order. The affairs of men require our attention, but the affairs of God may not be subordinated." He looked down at the motionless fugitive, too tensely still not to be aware of everything that passed above him, and at the equally motionless and unconscious woman before him; and again, looked up to catch a short, robust monk's concerned and thoughtful eye. "Brother Cadfael, we two, I think, are enough to take what confession our awakened guest may make, and tend the needs of both. They are gone," added the abbot dispassionately to the closest of the prone figures at his feet. "You may get up."

The thin body stirred uneasily, moving as if every flinching movement hurt, but it seemed that he had at least escaped broken bones, as he managed to stand up on his own, raising to the light a gaunt, bruised face smeared with blood and sweat and the slime of a running nose, then immediately lowering it to the figure that may have been his grace – he refused to admit such intercession might have been anything else.

"Should I help you with her?" he asked in a high voice, straining a bit with pain.

"I will manage" answered the clear, calm tones of Brother Cadfael, just a bit weathered by age – and manage he certainly could. For all of his sixty years, he was still powerfully built and had not yet lost all of the strength he'd possessed as a soldier of the Crusades. And shrewd, too, in his own ways, and valued for that quality by the no-less shrewd abbot, as well as by virtue of his experience of the world without. And it had escaped neither man that the moment he was rid of his immediate peril, this bloody little thing accused of robbery and murder was chiefly concerned by another's well-being.

* * *

As consciousness returned to her, it didn't take long for Rose to realize she was neither in Southwark Cathedral nor inside the TARDIS. She sat up suddenly, barely noticing the coarse linen sheet clinging to her clothes and looking all around her for signs of River Song but finding none; instead, an aging, robust monk was watching over her, his habit just as coarse as the linen sheet and, as Rose quickly assessed, entirely in place for the brasero-lit environment and harsh beddings.

The monk was evidently alert, his shrewd eyes observing her. Rose's expression briefly turned to dismay. Someone with her clothing and her eyes dropping unannounced in the middle of what, by Rose's quick assessment, had to be an hospital or a monastery in the high middle ages, could very quickly end up in a trial for witchcraft – if there was a trial at all.

And the monk picked up on her discomfort, and on why. "You need not worry if you coming here was an act of God. Father Radulfus isn't hasty in judgment; he will give you a fair chance to speak for yourself."

This did nothing to reassure Rose. How exactly was she going to talk to a medieval priest or abbot about time travel and not being entirely human? Her best chance was the TARDIS – but where was the TARDIS? Had she followed the young woman into the middle ages, or was she still stuck in London? And if she was, could Rose still call her through time, like the Empress of the Racnoss had pulled her, Donna and the TARDIS back to her own time once?

Then Rose's eyes widened. "I understand you!" she blurted, earning herself a wry smile.

"I should certainly hope so, at least as far as speech is concerned."

Rose paled at that – how exactly was she supposed to explain to this monk that the reason she could understand his English – or Welsh, or Latin, for all she knew – was because she still had a connexion of some form with the TARDIS?

"So there _is_ something troubling you" the monk said – of course he had to notice! "Something you think my lord abbot should take as reason to condemn you." The aging man smiled. "Of course, I would not overstep and speak for Father Radulfus, but he is attached to justice and fairness, and would not count against you what is no fault of your own. But perhaps you would be more comfortable if I should call the parish priest to hear confession? Father Adam is no less of a fair soul and knows God forgives."

Rose raised her knees, hiding her face in the coarse linen covering them – she'd betrayed herself enough already to those keen eyes. She was caught, and had either to give the monk something to placate him or try to call the TARDIS. And the second wasn't sure, and would give her away. She had to try talking first, even to this unwholesomely sharp man.

"I'm not sure there's anything I can say to convince you there is no foul play on my part" Rose said truthfully, voice muffled by the linen. "I don't even know how I arrived here."

The monk, as it turned out, was willing to be helpful. "You appeared, in a shower of golden light, in front of a young man who was asking for sanctuary, scaring away the men who were ignoring that sacred right. You stared at them for a moment, then the golden light faded from you, and you fell unconscious. It was the hour of Matins when you arrived, and I have now just come back from Vespers to see you wake."

Rose lifted her head. "Thank you. That means I slept throughout the day."

"Indeed. Do you remember anything from before you appeared?"

"Not really" Rose said, in a half-truth – she really didn't remember what she did as Bad Wolf, just that she'd been convinced to resort to that power. "And that doesn't explain how I ended up here, at least not in a way I understand. Or why I should be here at all."

"God's ways are often impenetrable to men" the monk said simply, and Rose snorted. 'Do-it-yourself Goddess of Space and Time kit' was what River Song had called her – well, her and the TARDIS together, technically, but-

Rose's train of thought stopped dead in its tracks. "River. She must have no idea where I am now."

The monk raised an eyebrow. "You had a companion with you?"

"Sort-of. It's a complicated" Rose blurted. "And full of spoilers." The turn of phrase left her interlocutor nonplussed, and made Rose remember exactly who she was talking to. She groaned. "There's no way I can explain to you about her or what I was doing before arriving here in a manner you could understand or accept."

The monk smiled kindly. "Child, I have been in this world sixty years and walked across three continents before I took the cowl. I have been soldier, sailor and healer. I may very well not understand all you have to tell, but your true worry is that you might be judged for it, and it is not my right to do so any more than it is to judge the poor soul whose life you inadvertently saved."

Rose looked at the monk with surprise. "The young man. And you said he claimed sanctuary – for what? Why was he wanted?"

"You have a desire to help him."

"Maybe I should? I don't think it's an accident I appeared just in time to protect him."

"His name is Liliwin" the monk supplied, "a traveling jongleur, and he is wanted for thievery and wounding. And since names are being given, I am Brother Cadfael, of the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Shrewsbury, in the shelter of which we are talking."

This was it – Rose had to make a decision. She could try to stay evasive, talking to this all too discerning monk, or she could trust him… and trust in Bad Wolf.

She swallowed, then trained her eyes on the monk's. "My name is Rose Tyler, and I was born in London, several centuries in the future…"

* * *

Hugh Beringar of Maesbury, deputy sheriff of the shire, was also a man Brother Cadfael had regarded as a friend for the better part of two years since their meeting. The young man, not yet thirty, was by no means the most physically impressive of knights in England, but he was a match in cleverness for the Benedictine monk and fair-handed. Beringar had reached the abbey for Vespers, after a long conference with the sergeant concerning the lost treasury of Daniel Aurifaber, believed stolen by young Liliwin. In search of it, every yard of ground between the goldsmith's house and the bushes from which Liliwin had been flushed at midnight had been scoured without result. Every voice in the town declared confidently that the jongleur was the guilty man, and had successfully hidden his plunder before he was sighted and pursued.

"But you, I think" Beringar said, walking back towards the gatehouse with Cadfael beside him and twitching a thin dark eyebrow at his friend, "do not agree. And not wholly because this particular enforced guest of yours is young and hungry and in need of protection. What is it that convinces you? For I do believe you are convinced he's wronged."

"You've heard his story" Cadfael replied. "But you did not see his face when I put into his head that the goldsmith may get back his memory of the night in full, and be able to put a name or a face to his assailant. He took that hope to him like a blessed promise. The guilty man would hardly do so."

"And is the thought of this bereaved youth of yours being wronged what troubles you so, or is that on the account of the other controversial guest of this house?"

Cadfael returned Beringar a wry smile. "I shall have to teach that godson of mine never to presume he can safely hide anything from his irksomely perceptive father" he said with fondness.

"It should certainly make my parenting considerably easier" Beringar replied with a smile of his own. "And I take it you're thinking more saint than succubus."

Cadfael sighed. "Hugh, listening to Rose Tyler speak for one hour shattered more of my notions of what is impossible in this world than did twelve years around Orient and Africa. Either word is too small to describe her."

"But you think more the former" Beringar said, "merely believe she would be found the latter."

"What else could she be found to be by the unwary observer? The girl claims no magic nor divine intervention to defend being capable of appearing out of thin air in front of the entire abbey's eyes. And she is determined to help discern the truth of what happened to clear Liliwin's name, and intends to as soon as she is satisfied she can travel at her leisure, which apparently does not necessitate her passing through doors or gates or even walls. She might very well be expecting us outside of town this very moment – you brought me out to inspect the place the poor wretch was found, did you not?"

"I did. And I hardly think the young woman could assist, even if she had the mind – proof obtained by unnatural arts will hardly serve in convincing an angry mob we're delivering who is due to the law" Beringar said with a frown, but he commented no further, and Cadfael knew very well why: his friend would still accept such guidance if he was assured it served a clearly rightful cause. Hugh Beringar would go – and had gone – to great lengths to see justice served even when he only had half the proof he needed to offer. In fact Hugh had put his life on the line in trial by arms that very same way at the beginning of their friendship.

The pair passed through the arch, an odd duo to move so congenially side by side, the monk squat and square and sturdy, rolling in his gait like a seaman, the sheriff's deputy more than thirty years younger and half a head taller, but still a small man, of graceful, nimble movements and darkly saturnine features.

They turned towards the bridge that led into the town, but turned aside again on the right, a little way short of the riverside, into the belt of trees that fringed the road, and there, as Cadfael had said might happen, Rose Tyler waited.

"So it turns out you can indeed call this TARDIS of yours to travel where you please" the monk said in lieu of greetings.

"And your companion must be Hugh Beringar" Rose said in return with a small curtsey, indistinct in the evening shadows cast by the trees next to which she was standing. Rose had been very relieved to find out her connexion with the TARDIS had remained entirely intact and that she was, in fact, capable of calling the old girl from a different time and not just a different place. And she had retrieved fine but plain black robes from the wardrobe, which wrapped her almost entirely, leaving only her face to be seen.

Hugh Beringar answered the curtsey with a small bow of his own, and spoke up very seriously. "You must realize that being outside of the abbey makes you a fugitive from church law and liable to be burnt at the stake without trial if found."

"Occupational hazard" Rose replied with a small smile. "I'm just more interested in finding truths than in following the letter of law."

Beringar stopped in front of Rose, gauging her. If he was surprised by the flippant response or her unusual eyes, he showed nothing of it as he spoke. "I trust Cadfael's word that you aren't working for evil purposes, but why are you even interested in young Liliwin?"

"I know for a fact I didn't appear in front of him without reason" Rose replied. "I just don't know exactly why. Maybe it is because he's innocent and in need. Or it could be because I'd get to meet with either or both of you, but there's really no way for me to know."

"If you can come and go anywhere as you please, there's no real reason for you to stay here either" the deputy sheriff remarked. "Besides, what can you even do to serve this inquiry that we can't?"

"Go basically unseen anywhere you need someone to watch or listen, take a peek at their past and possible futures and look really impressive with nice shiny golden eyes in the process, make the meanest banana muffin to go with that nice cup of tea that gets people to confide in you – tea's a bit ahead of schedule but it's always going to work on us English, track just about anything you need to follow, human or alien, and appear literally anywhere you might need me to – all services provided free of charge as long as I get to have a little bit of time to myself to eat and sleep, extras on demand depending on availability. Rose Tyler, investigator extraordinaire, at your service." The young woman punctuated the tirade with another curtsey for the baffled deputy sheriff.

"And you have endured a full hour of that?" Beringar asked Cadfael.

"Trust me, that's not the most disconcerting that woman can be" Cadfael replied. "Just don't ask her questions about where or when she has been before coming here – the answers are more than enough to doubt one's sanity."

"I can believe that. And in her favour speaks the fact that she could have run" said Beringar with a sigh, "as clearly, none of us would be able to have any significant control over her." He turned to Rose. "Very well. If we cannot stop you and you are determined to help in this matter, you might as well accompany us. It will at least save the pair of us some headaches."

"I hope it won't" Rose said with a tongue-in-teeth grin, earning herself a groan from the deputy sheriff. The two men resumed their walk, and Rose fell in with them easily.

Soon the trio walked by the banks of the river Severn, which gleamed under the evening sun, along the meadows called the Gaye. They could see the green, clear light through the branches as they came to the place where Liliwin had settled down sadly to sleep before leaving this unfriendly town. And it was a nest indeed, rounded and coiled into the slope of thick new grass, and so small, like the haunt of a dormouse.

"He started up in alarm, in one leap clear of his form, like a flushed hare," Beringar observed soberly. "There are young shoots broken here, where he crashed through. This is unquestionably the place."

He looked round curiously. Cadfael was searching the bushes, which grew thickly here. "What are you seeking?"

"He had his rebec in a linen bag on his shoulder," Cadfael replied. "In the dark a branch caught the string and jerked it away, and he dared not stop to grope after it. So he told me, and truly he is pained by that particular loss. I am sure that was truth. I wonder what became of it?"

"And what are _you_ seeking?" Beringar asked Rose in turn, doing his best to ignore the pink flashes and whirring noise from the silver cylinder the woman held.

"Scanning for large concentrations of gold or silver in the area" Rose replied. Then, seeing the deputy sheriff's nonplussed expression: "Basically, if the loot stolen from Walter Aurifaber were hidden around, this would allow me to locate it. And no, this is not a wand, it's a sonic screwdriver, and yes, I know screws exist in this era but not screwdrivers, and no, it doesn't just drive screws, and no, don't ask what else it does unless you wish to be here all night."

"I promise I won't ask" Beringar said drily. "And now? What are you trying?" he asked as the young woman was crouching above Liliwin's haunt.

"Picking up on the jongleur's scent, for lack of a better explanation. I should be able to find him more easily, or say if he's handled an object or actually been somewhere."

Beringar raised an eyebrow. "And could you do the same for whoever laid a hand on the goldsmith's chest recently?"

"I could, I'd just have to cross-check with other traces of the same people" Rose said, scanning the nest Liliwin had made for himself as she spoke. "There's going to be more than one person who's touched such a chest, even if they don't necessarily have the keys. Which I don't need, by the way – assume this tool of mine can open any metallic lock."

"I'd almost start to worry about whether you should be considered a possible suspect if the idea of someone who has access to such possessions going for base material gain wasn't so ludicrous" the knight said drily, "and if I weren't about to suggest some constructive suspicious behaviour myself – you did say you could go unseen anywhere, didn't you?"

"Not quite unseen, but I'm good at slipping into places where I'm not supposed to be" Rose replied quietly, standing up. The screwdriver disappeared inside the folds of her sleeves. "I don't think there's much else you can learn here tonight."

"All the same, I'd feel more at peace should we go some length along the Severn and ensure no treasure is hidden by the banks. It's been known to happen" the young man added wryly, and his older friend returned a fond smile.

"I think the treasure you poached in the end had far more worth" the monk said benignly, and Beringar laughed.

"Truly! And speaking of poaching", and he bent towards some bush, "it seems our young miscreant might just have a felony on his account after all. Just the one person passed where this rabbit skeleton lay" he said, retrieving and looking at a small leg bone. "The tromping of the mob never reached this part of the bush."

Cadfael gave a saddened sigh as he approached to look at the bone. "Can we truly make reproach for someone whose only crime was to be cast out starved of a promised supper?" Then the monk frowned as he looked at the bone, and he picked it out of Beringar's hand to study it closely. "This has been picked too clean for a man eating, hastily or not – or any animal, really." The monk bent towards where the rest of the rabbit lay. "The rest of the bones look just the same – cleaned white of any flesh without the smallest incision betraying knife, tooth or claw, and they have not been cooked."

The monk gently put down the leg bone, and stepped away. Rose replaced him, quietly scanning the remains of the small animal. "The young man never touched this rabbit" she said. "Something else has, but this has nothing to do with the theft and assault you're inquiring about."

"The man is accused of consorting with demons as well" Beringar said gloomily. "Does that seem possible at all to you that he would not have needed to touch the little beast to consume it, or some servant of his in his place?"

"No, I'm positive it's something else." Rose stood, a grim expression on her face.

"And what would that something else be?" asked Beringar, and Rose studied him for an instant, golden gaze wandering over the saturnine face half-cast in evening shadow.

"I don't know exactly" she said eventually, "although I have a solid idea of its nature. And it really, positively, utterly has nothing to do with Liliwin – are you absolutely sure you want to know?"

Beringar levelled a calculating gaze at the young woman. "You are trying to protect us from something" he said. "I'll ask that you do not. Anything that threatens order in the share of King Stephen's lands placed under my purview I need to know of."

"How many people are remembered as having disappeared in these meadows, never to be found?" Rose asked in return.

"None whatsoever" Cadfael said firmly.

Rose sighed with relief. "What ate the rabbit are very, very small flesh-eating insects hiding in shadows, too small to distinguish with the eye. At least they wouldn't be dangerous to us if nobody got eaten by them, which is just as well, because they're spooky enough as it is. Look right next to Liliwin's hidehole, you'll see what I mean."

"I thought your insects were too small to see with our eyes" Beringar remarked.

"There is something to see, Hugh" Cadfael said quietly. "Look at this shadow. Can you say what casts it?"

Beringar looked where he was asked to. His expression hardened. "Nothing's casting it" he said tensely.

"No. That shadow is made of those very small insects I just told you about – thousands and thousands and thousands of them" Rose said. "A flesh-eating swarm. Innocuous to humans, apparently, but deadly to small animals. I wouldn't be surprised if we found more bones picked clean in the vicinity, nor if this meadow should have sounded quieter and a better place to sleep in for Liliwin because those insects hunt there."

"In any case, you were right about this having no import on our investigations about Walter Aurifaber's treasure" Beringar said glumly. "And I might have to keep that problem we just stumbled on in mind when dealing with suspicions of poaching – not that this would be the kind of matter I could bring up with Lord Prestcote." He looked at Cadfael, who shook his head.

"Abbot Radulfus is an open-minded man, but he could not keep such a problem quiet, and Prior Robert would not let him rest until the abbey had seen to the burning of every bush and meadow along the Severn banks that rests within abbatial lands, with all the damage that would result and still no certainty this would rid us of our moving shadows at all – they're gone now", and the monk nodded in the direction he meant. "They don't like being caught in the presence of man, the Vashta Nerada."

Time traveller and deputy sheriff looked at the monk with surprise.

"How do you know what these things are?" Rose blurted.

Cadfael smiled. "I don't. The name comes from a story I heard in my years in Orient" he reminisced, "from an herbalist in Palmyre descended from ancestors who heard it far further east, where Islam meets India, and passed the tale along. There's a myth there about the shadows that melt the flesh, preying in the deepest of wilds and the darkest of dark, and they call them Vashta Nerada. Demons made of shadow are talked about in their myth, though, not swarms of tiny insects, but for ease of conversation the name could do."

"It sounds right" Rose said, a bit troubled. "I've heard the name too, but only in passing, along with the 'just run' recommendation on how to handle those and a few other sorts."

"The pair of you are full of splendid news" Beringar said drily.

"It's a good thing the news are delivered to one of the rare souls capable of taking them with such aplomb, then" his monk friend replied lightly. "And now", he added seriously, "I need to make my way back to Shrewsbury if I wish to be in time for Compline. There is little else we can do here tonight."

"There might be between Matins and Lauds, if the extraordinary Missus Tyler is available."

"Dame Tyler, actually – she is a knight of the realm" Cadfael said mildly, and his friend look at Rose with surprise.

"A female knight?"

"I hadn't heard that tone since that day with Hippocrates" Rose groused, leaving poor Beringar gobsmacked.

"You met Hippocrates?" he gasped.

"I warned you, my good friend, don't even try to get the story of that young woman" the monk said wryly. "You'll much prefer having remained ignorant."

"I might have to meet you at Compline for spiritual guidance" the younger man mumbled.

"Just mind you show our young Dame where she can find the Aurifaber household, in order to fulfil that request you surely had in mind" the monk reminded his friend. "It would hardly do to have her search half the town blindly."

"I shall do that" Beringar let trail, and Rose gratified him with a tongue-in-teeth grin. "Don't worry, my Lord Beringar, your superiority as a knight is still safe, I'm completely rubbish with swords."

The deputy sheriff sent her back a pained look. "Please just don't."

* * *

As it turned out, there was little to be learned from the chest that had been emptied in the Aurifaber household; it bore tell-tale traces of most of the members of the household, with the exceptions of a young man who was in all likelihood just an employee of the household and the frail elderly matron Rose had had to sneak past on her way out – frail in body, but apparently still formidable of spirit, if the precise and bitter words about the state of affairs in the house and the wasting of a deserving granddaughter were any indication. There was just one odd note: the ancient woman was unaware that the woman who was in all likelihood her granddaughter was pregnant.

 _It will fall upon her head soon enough_ Rose thought moodily as she stole away from the house. _Childbearing out of wedlock in this age isn't going to be looked at kindly…_

This bit of information Rose brought to Cadfael, along with what the monk already believed – young Liliwin had never been near Walter Aurifaber's riches. The poor young man was rather distraught – Cadfael had happened upon his rebec, brutalized by children who used it to playfully beat and chase one another – but the monk had his priorities right, and he was concerned – not just for the pregnant granddaughter, but also for the grandmother.

"Juliana is a formidable old woman in her own way, but she's already suffered two strokes as a result of fits of her towering temper" the monk explained. "She's just had a minor relapse owing to the shock of her son being attacked and robbed, and I'm not sure she could take the news Susanna is with child."

"I could try and look if I have something that could help her on the TARDIS" Rose offered, and the monk smiled at her.

"As long as it would not look like some kind of otherworldly remedy" he said, making Rose bristle, but he disarmed her. "I would also much rather everything possible were done to prolong the poor woman's life, but it would do her no good should the manner of her treatment cause her another shock before she could take it."

"Right, magic" Rose groused. "I should probably stay well away from the town during the day. I'm good at staying unnoticed, but I'm not invisible."

"It is for the better, but you need not fear the Abbot. He knows of our current cooperation, and will not do anything against you unless his hand is forced, and even then, he shall do as much as he can manage to unobtrusively do so the effort made to pursue you stays ineffectual."

"I should stay out of the way of the other monks, then" Rose deduced. "Not going to be too hard, I'll probably be spending the day sleeping and then looking for something to help Juliana – I'm not a healer myself, just got access to the remedies and knowledge banks of one."

"We'll consult before anything is done. Do you know where Hugh Beringar lives?"

Rose nodded. "Should I meet you there tomorrow evening?"

"Only if you don't find me here between the hours of Compline and of Matins."

"That's between nightfall and midnight, right?"

"A good time for a gathering of conspirators" Cadfael said with a wry smile, and Rose snorted.

* * *

It wasn't a smiling Cadfael Rose got to meet when she made her way to the Foregate the following evening, and Hugh Beringar wasn't smiling either. Both men were grim, and silent as Rose approached.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Come and see for yourself" Beringar said darkly.

She was led back to the banks of the Severn. A reedy boatman of middle years was waiting there, looking properly scared. He was very unwillingly standing guard over a half-crumpled skeleton resting next to the meadow Rose had searched the night before. The skeleton was mud-caked from the river bank, its clothes left but a few tatters. A wedding ring still loosely adorned his finger.

"As you can see, shadows did melt a man's flesh" Beringar commented grimly as Rose crouched to examine the bones. Carefully, wetting her long sleeve in the Severn, the young woman proceeded to wipe the mud off the skull.

"Scoured clean just like the rabbit" she noted quietly, and she gently lifted the dead man's head for the other two to examine.

"Rid of all flesh, but not of all signs" Cadfael said thoughtfully. "Look the abrasion behind the skull and to its right. This man was struck with a blow to the head before he died – not quite hard enough to kill him, but possibly to put him out of commission."

"By someone who would have left him there to disappear" Beringar pondered; this prompted the boatman to speak in a dispassionate voice.

"Begging your pardon, my lord, if this man was struck, it wasn't done here" the man rasped. "Poor sod was carried here by the Severn, and he was still flesh and whole and out of his wits, if possibly dead to rights. And going by the currents, he can't have come from much farther than the castle."

"So there's a chance he was murdered somewhere else, his body left to drift along the river and finding itself too close to the den of those shadows. And if our man wasn't dead when he left the shore, he was by the time he alighted here face first."

"His purse is missing" Cadfael remarked. "Whoever it was assaulted might have stolen as well, much like happened to the goldsmith. There will be little way to tell what happened, unfortunately – the shadows left very little to tell us."

"Except perhaps his name, going by his ring, but even that we'll find out long before we match bauble to man. Someone is bound to miss him already, and I'll hear him reported sooner rather than later. And when the corpse is shown with his ring for sole confirmation of identity, the matter of this death will pass into the Abbot's hands."

"With a suspected succubus gone missing and a death that can't be explained as anything else but the result of dark powers or the work of demons" Rose said glumly.

"Yes, and when there's murder, intended or not, connected with the matter of the jongleur. Thankfully he's in sanctuary, he can't be accused of having any part in this death when he could not possibly have been there, if it is established our dead man went missing less than two nights ago."

"I can be accused" Rose groused. "It's been known to happen, too."

"Which is why you should come with me and speak with Father Abbot" Cadfael said, "he'll not turn aid from someone that can explain and identify what truly happened. That, though, comes after we are done with a visit to Juliana – did you find something to help remedy her?"

Rose frowned. "Well, there's the idea of thinning her blood, but that's too tricky, I don't know enough about it. There's drugs that can make her calmer and aren't quite dangerous, but she'll feel different and she'll know she's drugged."

"So do any of my patients who consume poppy juice or herb wines" Cadfael said mildly. "She'll not take too unkindly to medicine that doesn't look otherworldly; at worst she'll put up a resistance about needing to retain her strong character."

"If only I could have brought a Mellow patch" Rose mumbled, "but something tells me year six billion mood patches _are_ going to be seen as dark magic."

"Are they not?" Beringar said teasingly, and Rose huffed.

"I'll have you know it's science, my lord."

"I defer to your superior knowledge, Dame Tyler."

* * *

True to Cadfael's description of her, Dame Juliana was a woman with a temper that had nothing to envy Queen Victoria's. And at the receiving end of it was, among others, the notion of Rose being less than human. "Miracles do occur" the old woman said scathingly when Cadfael mildly brought up the possibility. "Our Holy Mother is fond of reminding us of the fact it should not be so easily cast aside, and rightly so for present company. Anyone who takes a good look at you and says yours is the face of someone capable of any vileness is either a liar or a fool."

"Thank you" Rose managed to mumble.

"And this medicine of yours tastes fouler than some of Cadfael's" the old woman grated, shutting down Rose's reaction of gratitude. "Speaking of you, holy brother, there's a word you could carry to Hugh Beringar, if he doesn't already know from a battering at the abbey's gates. Baldwin Peche's gone missing, and half the town are going to think the scoundrel you're protecting did it when word spreads."

"The locksmith?" Cadfael's brow furrowed. "When did this come to pass?"

"His folk haven't seen him since the morning, when he left for the riverside to fish, and he's certainly not lost to the Severn. There's hardly a handful that know these waters better than him."

The monk and the young woman exchanged dark looks. "Hugh may already know" Cadfael said grimly, "but I'll go to him as soon as we are done here, just in case – if this disappearance, murder proves to be."

"Yoda grammar" Rose blurted.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nevermind. Just being silly."

"I would advise considering acting your age" Juliana chided, and Rose rolled her eyes.

"Yes Ma'am…"

For an instant, Rose wondered what would have happened had her friend Donna been matched against the acerbic old lady – sparks would certainly have flown. And Martha wouldn't have stayed quiet either…

Martha.

There had been no chance for the time traveller to find out which of the two Jones sisters had died in the explosion of Professor Lazarus' infernal machine before confronting the man, and rushing back to 2008 had stopped being an option the instant Rose had got involved with clearing young Liliwin's name.

And the enigmatic River Song, who knew so much about Rose and the Doctor – she, too, would have been left behind, but Rose had a lot less reasons to worry about her. River was more experienced than Rose at this point in her timeline, owned a vortex manipulator and clearly knew a trick to send a message to Rose's psychic paper if needed. Which, come to think of it, Rose needed to learn.

But before Rose could address her concerns for any of her friends and companions, she'd have to deal with the acerbic old woman who'd just poked her with a stick and lectured her about keeping her head on what she was about.

* * *

It was only one hour later that Rose finally got to escape from old Juliana's clutches – the matron of the Aurifaber household had pointedly stated the young woman needed a "few" reminders of proper behaviour before she went on her way, although her victim couldn't entirely shake off the notion the series of lectures and sharp rebukes had just been a way for the elderly woman to entertain herself. And Rose was a bit miffed at the escape Cadfael had made (with a very good excuse, too, he did have to meet Beringar); the old monk was turning out to be quite capable of mischief, as evidenced by his mirth as he took his leave.

Someone else may very well have been about mischief, and not the playful type. One thing three years of time travel had done for Rose was sharpening her senses; she had become quite alert, and had no difficulty spotting the figure that hastened away from the house, hugging the shadows as best he could, and it was a figure she knew already, having seen him and his wife in their sleep – Daniel Aurifaber. And then there was the other figure, slinking after him and keeping a bead on him, that of a mousey young man far better at stealth. Just not at trailing; after a minute of weaving his way through the streets the small figure hesitated, looked around, and made for, then through the town's gate, unaware that he was being followed in the open stretch between town and abbey, even when he took the less travelled path that brought him to the banks of the Severn, not very far from-

Rose muttered an oath. _Nope, not letting whoever this is near the Vashta Nerada_.

The young woman upped her pace, and with it her noise level. It meant the young man walking out there in the open was bound to hear her, but that was something Rose wanted, she just had to reassure whoever that was the moment they started.

"It's alright, it's alright, it's alright" she said, stopping and holding up empty hands which shone under the moonlit sky. Rose's quarry didn't bolt, but he was ready for it. His scared traits were those of a teenager, and he was clearly terrified of being found, which probably meant-

"You're Liliwin, right?" the young woman said in her friendliest voice. She lowered her hood, revealing herself. "I'm Rose."

This had the intended effect: the boy forgot any idea of running, and the fear on his face was replaced by awe. "You're the one who saved me the other night" he managed.

"Sort-of" Rose said with a kind smile. "The Abbot did most of that."

"They're searchin' for you" the boy replied with urgency. "I heard it from the Prior's right-hand man this afternoon, he said you'd be taken to the pyre the moment they catch you."

"Neither you nor I would have passed that gate this easily had there been an ongoing demon hunt" Rose said reasonably, concealing her surprise. She'd think about the Prior's intentions later. "Speaking of which, you don't look like you're comfortable being outside of sanctuary – you're heading back there, aren't you?"

The jongleur bobbed awkwardly on his feet. "I'm goin' back. I don't want to run away."

"Why were you out, then? Not for a bit of fresh air, that's something available in the gardens."

The young man blushed so violently it was visible under the poor light. "I was seein' my girl safe home" he said, trying his very best to sound manly. Rose smiled at him.

"That's very nice" she said warmly. "I'd avoid the river bank on the way back, though, it's a bit unsafe in the dark."

"Road's a lot worse" Liliwin replied. "I'll take a slip up on wet rock or scratches from the bush over being caught out in the open by a guard – that'd kill me."

 _There aren't Vashta Nerada on the road_ Rose thought grimly, but she couldn't explain that. And in a sense, the boy wasn't wrong – Rose didn't know whether the shadow-forming insects would attack and kill a man, but a noose obviously would.

Of course, the young man was oblivious about that danger; his concerns lay in an entirely different direction. "I thought of runnin', you know" he admitted. "Might have if I'd been on my own. But now there's Rannilt – sweetest girl I ever knew." His eyes lit. "I love her. And I'm not leavin' if that means losin' her."

Rose smiled. "Good for you, Liliwin."

She walked with him along the bank in the direction of the Abbey, eyes ever vigilant as they walked past familiar bank and meadows, checking out for shadows, but there were none to spot that shouldn't have been there. Before long, the pair slipped into the bushes that lined the road near the gate Liliwin needed passage through.

"I hope there'll be goin's at this hour" the jongleur murmured after a couple of minutes of waiting. "It's really chillin' down here, creeps to your bones."

This startled Rose. The night certainly wasn't chilly at all. She looked around in alarm, and blanched when she noticed a hint as to what was wrong: the young man had two shadows. Her time sense kicked in far easier than any time before – and brought sickening confirmation.

"Liliwin, please keep calm, and listen to me" Rose said as calmly as she could manage. "You need to stay still, very, very still. No matter what, no matter the chance, as long as you feel this cold, stay very, very still."

The young man was gaping at her. "Your eyes!"

"Nevermind my eyes" Rose said, letting go of her extra sense so that the light would fade. "Don't move, don't twitch, just breathe as shallowly as you can."

The boy obeyed, trembling from head to toe but managing to stay in place, and silent. Then Rose blinked, as people reflexively do, and the second shadow was gone.

"You're alright now" she said, and the young man crumpled on the soil, hugging his knees and shaking uncontrollably. "We can't stay here" Rose murmured. "Close your eyes, and keep them closed. I'll take us inside."

The jongleur obeyed. He started for an instant when he felt Rose's hand lay on his shoulder, but he forced his eyes to stay closed, terrified of what he might see, and kept them closed throughout hearing the noises of the TARDIS about him. Nor did he crack them open as Rose led him blindly out of the time travelling ship and back into the Abbey's garden. Only once he was safely out did Liliwin open his eyes, recognizing by scent where he had ended, and the boy broke into a run for a small wood-and-thatch cottage on the abbey grounds in which he shut himself. Rose didn't try to join him; she knew the young man would be terrified out of his wits. Besides, one of the two men she wanted to see was with the young man already, judging by the voices which stirred from the small cottage.

She had other tasks to perform meanwhile; the first was to try and scan for just where the Vashta Nerada were headed, and the second was finding out as much as she could about those creatures from the TARDIS' library – and specifically, if they also preyed upon sentient beings…

* * *

Rose's research got her mixed results. The spooky part was how the monk and the Doctor had used the same name to label the creatures. There was no way that bit was a coincidence. The frightening part was that the Vashta Nerada _did_ prey upon live sentients when there were enough of them. The reassuring part was that there was only one swarm moving about near Shrewsbury, and it was slowly drifting away from town and abbey. The terrifying part was that that swarm was just shy of numbering enough individuals to become aggressive against human-sized beings – the TARDIS had numbered them in the range of eight million – but certainly numerous enough to feel confident to attack children. And the disheartening part was there really was nothing to do about the Vashta Nerada, just run.

It was already morning by the time Rose was done and went to bed, mulling upon this acquired knowledge and trying to formulate a plan to somehow get the Vashta Nerada to move away. She had no success before sleep claimed her, nor after she woke up late in the afternoon. And of course, while this issue occupied her, she wasn't helping in any way to clear the matter of the young jongleur.

It was only well into the following night that Rose managed to find time with the monk and deputy sheriff. Her "co-conspirators" hadn't gained much ground either. The only news they had to bring was that Daniel Aurifaber was the man young Liliwin had spotted the night before and that he was cheating on his newlywed bride already, forty-eight hours after consuming their union. Nobody knew about the movements of Baldwin Peche or why he'd have been attacked either; much less where he'd been pushed into the Severn.

"There's been a hue and cry, too, against our young scoundrel" Beringar finished explaining to Rose, bringing her up to the speed of the two men gathered with her in the deputy sheriff's home. "We've got the town convinced he hadn't left in the end, at least enough that they backed off. He's not going to try and leave in a hurry again either, after what your Vashta Nerada did to him."

"Well, there's nothing to do about them save for forbidding the bank of the Severn from access for a few days" Rose said glumly, "and that's not going to do well with the locals."

"I can always forbid access to the banks on the grounds of wishing them undisturbed until the death of Master Peche can be resolved" Beringar said, frowning. "It might even help us flush out some things, or someone."

"And if we find a way to scare small animals away for a while, the swarm might move elsewhere to find prey again" Cadfael pondered. "It would also help keep the banks unvisited, if they are unnaturally quiet."

"I might have some tools to help with that" Rose said, "I'll have to search what the Doctor's left behind. The other day I stumbled upon a machine to repel dinosaurs."

Beringar raised an eyebrow. "To repel what?"

"Giant lizards?"

"Does it work on dragons?"

Rose groaned. "Please, let's not go there, I've had enough of dragons for a while."

The younger man hid his face in his hands. "Why did I even ask?"

"Youthful innocence" Cadfael said mildly.

There was an end to the banter, coming in the form of a hurried servant boy. "My lord Beringar, the Aurifabers' man Iestyn is here. He needs Brother Cadfael; he says it's urgent, and about Dame Juliana."

Monk and time traveller exchanged a glance.

"We are coming" the monk said, and he took off briskly, Rose following suit. They set a sharp pace along the Foregate and over the bridge, and asked such questions as were necessary as they went.

"How did she come to be up and active at this hour?" Cadfael inquired. "And how did this fit come on?"

Iestyn had few words to spare, as was his use. "Mistress Susanna was up late seeing to her stores, for she's forced to give up her keys. And Dame Juliana rose up to see what she was still about. The fit took her at the top of the stairs and she fell."

"But the seizure came first? And caused the fall?"

"So the women say."

"The women?"

"The maid was there and saw it."

"What's her state now, then? The old dame? Has she bones broken? Can she move freely?"

"The mistress says nothing broken, but one side of her stiff as a tree, and her face drawn all on askew."

"Stroke" Rose interjected. "I'll meet you there." She took off to a shadowy corner and called the TARDIS. Once in, she ran for the infirmary and grabbed what she'd haphazardly set aside as she'd tried to find out how to help prevent that kind of ailment. All that disappeared in a small satchel Rose slung over her arm before moving to the Aurifabers'.

Walter was hopping about uneasily at the entrance to the passage, watching for them with a horn lantern in his hand. He ushered the duo inside. His son Daniel was huddled into his gown in the hall, only briefly attempting to stir when he spotted Rose, but a stern look from Cadfael got him to rethink any notions of hue and cry.

"We carried her up to bed" Daniel said uncomfortably. "The women are there with her. Go up, they're anxious for you, Brother." And he followed, half-troubled, half-wary, and hovered in the doorway of the sick-chamber, but did not step within, Iestyn remained at the foot of the stairs. In all the years of service here, most likely, he had never climbed them.

In Juliana's room a brazier burned in an iron basket set upon a wide stone, and a small lamp on a shelf jutting out from the wall. On one side of the narrow bed the younger woman, Daniel's wife Margery, mute and pale, drew hastily back into the shadows to let Cadfael and Rose come close. On the other, Susanna stood erect and still, and her head turned only momentarily to ascertain who it was who came.

Cadfael sank to his knees beside the bed. Juliana was breathing with effort, and if one sense had been snatched from her, the ancient eyes were alive in the contorted face, alert and resigned. They met Cadfael's and knew him. The grimace could almost have been her old, sour smile.

The Benedictine shook his head and stood back up, looking at Rose. "This is beyond my purview. If your medicines can save her, you are welcome to try, but tell me if we should send for her priest first. It might well be his errand more than ours."

"I can give it a try, but it would be risky" Rose said, gnawing at her lip. "I might be able to get a clot dissolved, but if there's a ruptured vessel it'll only kill her a little faster, and I don't know how to check the difference by eye." Unsaid went the fact the sonic screwdriver could be used to scan for either eventuality, but if it was the wrong answer, the old woman was dead anyway, Rose thought sombrely.

"Send Daniel for her priest, then" said Cadfael. "That way she can be given absolution before we make the try." The monk looked at Susanna. "Has she spoken?"

"No. Not a word." It struck Rose that Susanna looked as Juliana must have looked fifty years ago, then a comely, resolute, able matron, married to a man of lesser fibre than her own. Her voice was low, steady and cool. She had done what could be done for the dying woman, and stood waiting for whatever broken words might fall from that broken mouth. She even leaned to wipe away the spittle that ran from its deformed lips at the downward corner.

Margery had stolen thankfully out of the room, to send her husband for the priest. She did not come back. Walter was below, pinching out candles and fretting over the few that must remain. Only Susanna on one side of the bed and Cadfael and Rose on the other kept watch still.

The old woman's live eyes in her dead carcase clung to Cadfael's face. Her twisted mouth suddenly worked, emitted an audible sound. Cadfael stooped his ear close to her lips.

A laborious murmur, indistinguishable, and then: "It was I bred them…" she said thickly, and then she let out a rattling sigh. "But for all that… I should have liked to hold… my great-grandchild…"

Cadfael had barely raised his head when she closed her eyes, sharing a saddened look with Rose. They both knew, now, what had struck Juliana down. But the old woman lingered yet, if not attempting to speak anymore, even for elderly and kind Father Adam when the priest arrived. She bore with his urgings, and made the effort to respond with her eyelids when he made his required probings into her sense of sin and need and hope for absolution.

Then the priest left Juliana's side and pulled Rose away a bit, and addressed her discreetly. "Some in this house call you an angel, others a demon, but verily I care for neither party. All I need to know is you are here to try and give Dame Juliana a little more time in this world. Do anything you must, so long as she does not suffer needlessly."

Rose looked at him with a bit of wariness, then glanced at Cadfael, who nodded slightly. Susanna's eyes missed none of that exchange, but she said nothing, just stood stolidly as she had throughout.

The time traveller gave a resigned sigh. She went back to Juliana, kneeling by the old woman where monk had stood moments before, and got out her screwdriver, taking care to keep hit hidden in the folds of her ample black sleeves as she fiddled with it then activated it, its whirring piercing over the gentle crackling of the brazier. The young woman said nothing over what she'd found; she went swiftly for her satchel and retrieved an injector, which she pressed on the veins on the back of a withering hand. Juliana's closed eyelids tensed briefly, then relaxed. The twisting of her traits eased slightly, but not from an ending. However frailly, her breath rose her chest still.

"She might live" Rose finally said quietly after a moment of observation and another use of her hidden tool. "There's just no certainty yet. I'll have to keep watching her overnight."

"I'll stay as well" said Susanna. And for the life of her, Rose couldn't tell if this formidable-looking woman was saddened or relieved that her equally formidable grandmother might keep drawing breath.

* * *

Juliana lived through the night, unstirring, but her face lost its contorted appearance. On a couple of occasions Rose tried to engage her granddaughter Susanna in quiet conversation; she got sharply rebuffed each time.

A young maid had better luck when she came later in the night. Rose caught a quiet exchange between the two of them that added to her unease about the goldsmith's household. Susanna had just been rather brutally demanded to hand over the keys to the stores and kitchens to Daniel's wife, which she would do in the morning, and had been told in no uncertain terms that there would be no marriage for her either, leaving her with nothing but her pride – and a child, but that, the maid Rannilt apparently didn't know about.

It was also the same Rannilt the young jongleur had talked about with stars in his eyes, and when later in the night Rose got a chance to talk to her alone, she got confirmation it was a shared sentiment – and a little more than that possibly. Girl talk with someone born 850 years before her was one of the small privileges of the time traveller.

Eventually, the maid left too, leaving Rose to watch over the unconscious old woman alone well into the morning, with no one else showing up to assist – and certainly not Margery, who had shown little care and resolve in the night, and was only showing a large measure of the latter in the morning for a very different aim.

"Do you know where Susanna is?" the woman demanded in a harsh voice. "It's well past the time she should have surrendered me the keys to the stores, and I want them."

Rose didn't reply; she trained the glare of her golden irises upon the other woman and waited silently until Margery crumbled.

"I just need to set about preparing a meal" the woman mumbled, "and I can't find Susanna or the maid."

"They've stopped their vigil" Rose replied with a chilly tone. "It has been a long night; they might still need rest."

"They're not sleeping" said Margery. "I can't find them anywhere, nor the manservant."

That caught Rose's attention; her mind began to spin. "All missing? Did you notice something else?"

"A few discarded clothes in Susanna's bedroom, but she has to be packing – she's too stubborn to accept this household is mine to run and stay here."

"How about having packed and being already gone" Rose grumbled. And quite possibly with the father of her child, and a maid who might have only been treated fairly in the household by Susanna and consequently have decided to follow her wronged mistress. Rose stirred. "You stand vigil over Dame Juliana here, I'll open your stores for you and see if there's something else to spot. Watch her traits and complexion – if either change, shout for me."

She swept off, leaving a very uncomfortable Margery behind her, heading straight for the bedroom she knew to be Iestyn's – the stores could wait a few minutes. And there Rose found exactly what she'd expected to: a good chunk of the manservant's belongings were gone, and there, too, there were discarded clothes, and tools with them.

Someone banged loudly at the door, and shouted – it was Liliwin, Rose was surprised to recognize, and the jongleur's cries sounded frantic. Rose went to the entrance, meeting a disgruntled Walter Aurifaber there, but the goldsmith held his tongue – Beringar was there too, with mounted men-at-arms, and also Cadfael.

"They're gone" Rose said in lieu of greetings. "Susanna and Iestyn, and Rannilt should be with them."

"Then we have no time to lose" Beringar said darkly. "We've got spare horses for the pair of you. Mount up, we must catch them before they make across the border with Wales."

"Why should I bother?" the goldsmith said harshly.

"Because your stolen treasury should be with them" Beringar replied in the same tone; this had the desired effect, and Walter mounted with great haste, while the deputy sheriff turned to Rose. "Do you need assistance with the horse?"

"I'm good" Rose replied, "I could make better time and catch them on my own."

Beringar shook his head. "It could be dangerous for the maid. We've had a break on our case. It's certain Susanna is the one who killed Baldwin Peche."

This surprised Rose less than she thought it should have. "Then a little help is welcome" she said quietly. "Never learned to ride a horse."

* * *

The party rode out at a brisk pace – Beringar, the arm of the law, with six men at arms and a sergeant; Cadfael, the rare Benedictine; old Walter Aurifaber, his mind consumed by want for his lost gold; the jongleur Liliwin, affright for his love; and the time traveller, Rose, who was discovering just how uncomfortable riding at a trot could be for someone not used to the saddle. Thankfully, the ride did not take them very far; just a-ways outside of town, past the borough of Frankwell and into pastures belonging to the Aurifabers. There old Walter suspected his daughter would have gone for horses, and there she certainly was, keeping an eye on the road from her vantage point in the loft of the Aurifabers' stable and vanishing the moment she caught sight of the approaching party. This elicited a foul swear from Beringar.

"Spread out and surround the place, but don't make a move until I call for it" the deputy sheriff ordered, and then, to one of his archers: "Find yourself cover, and have an arrow at the ready to be loosed at whoever I keep in the frame, but only if I give the word." The archer nodded, dismounted, and made his way to the trees. Rose dismounted too, all too glad to be done with the ride.

"How are the stable doors closed?" the young woman asked old Walter once she was done.

"Barred" the man grumbled, easing his own bulk off his mount. "We won't break them down easily, and I'd much rather we didn't."

"The roof's doesn't look in a great state" the jongleur piped in, earning himself a glare from the goldsmith, but Beringar cut his rebuke short.

"Do you think you could get inside?"

"I've got to" the young man replied fearfully. "They're going to kill Rannilt."

"That's yet to be seen – they might parlay for her life. She's their only safe way out now." Beringar raised his voice; it rang loud and clear. "Open and come forth, or we'll hack you out with axes! We know you are there within, and know what you have to answer for – surrender now, and make the outcome easier on yourselves!"

The goldsmith sent Beringar an outraged look. "They must hang for stealing my treasury, as you well know" he hissed.

"Your gold's earthly existence isn't imperilled" Beringar hissed back, and he returned to Liliwin. "How long do you need?"

"I can't really say, I'd need to climb up and look. Maybe a half hour, or a little more, if I can make the attempt – where are you going, lady?" These last few words panicked, for a Rose who had already started for the stable and paused just long enough to turn.

"To the stable" the young woman said simply. "I'm going to _talk_ to them." She resumed her progression, and Liliwin started after her, only to be held by Cadfael's soothing tones.

"Don't fear what this woman is about to do" he said with a smile. "The last thing Rose Tyler wants is for anybody to lose their life here."

Beringar caught the monk's eye, but whatever passed between the two was said without words, and their exchange was concluded with a small nod of the deputy sheriff's head.

Rose was wincing a little as she made her way to the stable. She stopped below the window opening on the loft above and took a deep breath. "Hello hello the castle!" She scratched her chin. "Or is it the stable? Castle, stable, scrabble, schmable – no, that's not a proper word. Not that it's worth all that many points even counted triple. Anyway, hello!"

The figure who showed up was the one Rose had been hoping for – the man Iestyn, trying to look stern and only really managing to look confused. "What do you want? Are you hoping to get us to surrender?"

Rose grinned at the man. "Oh no, nonononono, that's not why I'm here. _I_ surrender. That is, if you're willing to let the maid go in exchange, a hostage for a hostage. Sounds fair to you?"

The man just stared at her. "Are you insane? In what world would a sorceress be someone we can safely keep at our backs? How would that exchange be any help to us?"

Rose smiled impishly. "Oh, I'm definitely insane, that's something you should really know about me. Mad girl in a blue box, pining for her boyfriend. You're Suzanna's boyfriend, right? Poor Suzanna, so very wronged."

"That's not a matter for you to right" the Welshman replied stiffly, "we've taken that into our own hands."

"And Baldwin Peche's life in the process" Rose said, all good humour vanishing instantly. "Poor, nosy Baldwin, looking for profit for himself from someone else's ill-begotten gains. That's why Suzanna killed him, isn't it? Stamped his face in the mud and pushed his dead body adrift. Pity it had to come to that, isn't it?"

"We have not come so far to go tamely to judgement now" Iestyn retorted. "And we have a life in our hands. If you really wish to make yourself useful, go back and tell Beringar this: a life for a life; let my woman free to go with her ransom and make for Wales, and I will release the girl and let you take me."

"No!" came Suzanna's shout from inside, at the same time as Rose shook her head.

"You'd leave your child fatherless" she said with pity – "you are the father, aren't you?"

"He is" Suzanna said sharply, showing up by her man's side. "And I'm not leaving without him."

"And that's why you need my help" Rose said matter-of-factly. "I can spirit the three of you out of here, if you'll let the girl and the gold go."

"Then what?" Suzanna said haughtily. "Are we supposed to make a living off the clothes on our backs?"

"Last night, when I was at your grandmother's bedside, did I look to you like someone who'll just let others suffer needlessly? I'm not offering you misery, I'm offering you your lives, if you'll let go of ill-begotten gains; and unlike the sheriff, I won't ask for a life to repay Baldwin Peche's – he tried to blackmail you, didn't he, when he found out who made off with Walter's gold?"

"And paid for it" Iestyn said wearily. "But you would have us pay for his life still."

Rose shook her head. "Nothing's going to bring the man back to life" she said. "What you _can_ do is spare the very much alive Rannilt, leave behind the gold that almost killed an innocent and did kill one greedy man, and live good and charitable lives while raising your child. Is that good enough?"

Iestyn acquiesced. Suzanna stayed still, and her man turned to her. "What more could we hope for?"

"I don't know" the woman replied softly. "My soul is forfeit after all I have done, I have accepted that already. And I'm old to be in fruit; I don't even know that our child will live. I fear that he too shall be taken from us in punishment for my sins."

"Let us make the assay" Iestyn replied, resolute. "We have a sorceress willing to intercede for us already. If there's no refuge left for us with God, let us at least try the world."

"Then I will follow your lead, my love" Suzanna mumbled, and she kissed him. Then the pair left the loft and made their way down. The heavy bar guarding the stable door was lifted, and Rose made her way around the stable just in time to meet with Rannilt, who was looking around fearfully from the door, ready to bolt.

"Go on, girl" Iestyn called from behind her. "You have your life back."

Rose made for the maid, and hugged her. This was enough to have Rannilt break down in her arms, and the time traveller rocked the other woman soothingly.

"You're safe now" she reassured her. "Liliwin is waiting for you – he's here, and no longer suspected. Go to him. Just tell Beringar and Cadfael I take charge of them."

The girl acquiesced, and after another sniffle, she broke from Rose's embrace and ran as fast as her feet would carry her, leaving Rose alone with Suzanna and Iestyn – and their child. She made her way into the stable, and pushed the door.

"I'll hold to my word" Rose said to the pair. "One warning, though: the way I'm going to get you out of here will challenge everything you know about this world if you are awake to bear witness to it. The choice to keep your eyes opened or to go through the journey asleep is yours."

"Then I choose sleep" Suzanna said instantly. "This world is all I have left."

* * *

Cadfael and Beringar did not see any more of Rose Tyler after that, although the monk did see a good deal more of old Juliana. Half a year into her recovery from the stroke that had nearly killed her, the Aurifaber matriarch had somehow forced her son into paying for lodging for her at the Abbey of Shrewsbury proper, secured with a remarkably generous stipend from such a miserly man. Cadfael suspected it had to do with Walter never caring that his first daughter had borne a child, though the prideful old woman never let anything on about what had transpired.

Such was Juliana, quieter for her accident of health and with a slower, slightly slurred speech, but still acerbic and sarcastic; and yet honourable and upright in her own ways. The old woman felt Susanna had been much wronged by her son's refusal to ever set aside even a penny for her dowry, forcing her to remain unwed and aging inside his household until she would no longer be needed. Juliana did not, however, know that her granddaughter had killed Baldwin Peche.

The Vashta Nerada were also gone, although whether it was of their own volition or as a result of the installation of noisy scarecrows to chase away the animals living near the banks of the Severn remained unclear. All Cadfael knew was that no more animal skeletons thoroughly stripped of flesh were found in the coves and bushes.

That was how things stood when one evening, during one of the visits of Cadfael to the old woman in the care of the Abbey, the door to her lodgings creaked open to let appear the very curious face of a man with a coif of voluminous and unruly black hair.

The man was smiling awkwardly. "Hi, I'm looking for a woman named Rose Tyler.

Cadfael returned him an amused smile. "Hello, Doctor. How have you been doing?"

The Doctor gaped at the monk like a fish. "What?"

"She's not here" Juliana rasped. "Now get in and shut the door behind you, you're letting in a draft."

The Doctor's head tilted in her direction. "Oh, I'm awfully sorry" he said, letting himself in and closing (slamming) the door shut behind him. A muffled woman's voice swore outside, but the Doctor ignored it, barring the door and then turning back to the small lodging's occupants.

"Wel-l-l-l, that's awkward. Well, not really, not the first time I'm meeting people out of order – maybe you know what I mean, or maybe you don't?"

"I just happen to have heard about you from one Rose Tyler" the monk replied lightly. "She's made a point of mentioning your hair at length."

"Why are you even looking for her?" Juliana cut in. "And why here? She's been gone and vanished wherever she went for a year and a half now."

"We-l-l-l, she's within five years and a couple of hundred miles from here – my version of her, I mean – so I've been checking times and places she's gone too. And are you Juliana?"

The old woman glared at him. "What if I am?"

The Doctor grinned. "I've met a woman who looked like you, only a lot younger – figures, too, if she's your granddaughter – and she said to tell you her name's Juliana Rose Aurifaber."

The old woman's expression didn't really change, but her eyes lost their hardness. "Juliana Rose" she repeated quietly, and the Doctor smiled at her.

"Nice kid. Very healthy. One hell of a pair of lungs. She's going to have quite the temper, your great-granddaughter."

"That certainly runs in the family" Juliana said ruefully, her former hostility completely forgotten. "How is Suzanna doing for herself?"

"Pretty well! Working really hard – it's not like she's living off an established husband, that Iestyn guy is only just finding his legs. Good man – good craftsman, too – and completely devoted to his wife, and a little bit scared for her, to tell the truth. She helps the parish tend to the miserly and to the sick. Horrible bedside manners, but she does the work of two like her."

"Now there's an unexpected vocation" Cadfael said bemusingly.

"Isn't it? Apparently she had a bit of a revelation when she met a certain young blonde woman I've been asking about – said something to the effect of having been shown what misery truly looks like and how far from there she really was. And she's not there, is she?"

"That impossible girl?" said Juliana.

"No, not that one" the Doctor replied distractedly, "she's outside the door and likely going to give me the talking-to of this lifetime when I leave. Maybe I should apply for sanctuary, I could kind-of do with the forty day respite. Then again…" and the man suddenly looked uneasy, "maybe not. Not even sure I could last forty minutes; forty days would be hell. Anyway, she's not here or around, then?"

"I'd try the woods at the coldest time of the winter before last if I were you" Cadfael supplied. "That's as good a place to start as any."

For the second time, the Doctor found himself gaping at the monk. "What's wrong with you? You're not supposed to be telling me what's in my future, that's incredibly dangerous!"

"I have it on good authority you should pay a visit there at some point" the monk replied lightly, "someone who knows quite a bit about how these things work, although it's not always the right moment to ask them."

For the third time, the Doctor gaped at the monk; this time around, he didn't protest. "Alright then." He gulped. "I'll, er… I'll keep that in mind. And I really should go, or the impossible girl's going to change into the impossibly angry girl and that's something you really, really don't want happening."

"I suppose I might find out at some point, then" the monk said. "Give my fond remembrances to Rose when you see her."

"And give her my thanks" Juliana rasped. "I never got to deliver them."

"I will, when she's done pouting" the Doctor grumbled. "Well, no sense delaying further. Allons-y!"

And the Doctor exited the lodging as promptly as he had entered. And of course, immediately found himself at the receiving end of a very stern lecture from a very small and very irate woman.

* * *

 **A/N:** Slower episode, but I wanted to set things up for later, and just wanted to write a bit in another universe I love.

Next stop, Shakespeare. Which I should be a little more prompt to edit, now that there isn't an election hanging as directly over my shoulder :p With a special guest, because I just can't follow canon ^^

 **Bad Wolf Jen** , River certainly isn't going to be marginalized. And John Simms' Master won't be absent for long. He should be back 2 episodes from now.

 **Shadow Eclipse** , thanks for the kind words! And this certainly isn't the last we've seen of River.

 **Loca8892** , the Master cometh.

 **CMiller13** , who knows what that relationship may be! :D River calls Rose "sweetheart" and the Doctor "pretty boy", make what you will of it :3

 **ALotOfNerdyThings** , I'm glad it feels like Rose's adventures to you, it was the intended goal. And I have four seasons' worth of content planned, with a few ideas for later. It _is_ going to take time :D

Thanks for all these reviews, and thanks for the favorites/follows! And I promise _The Shakespeare Code_ will be faster. You know what it's about ^^


	9. VIII - The Shakespeare Code

**A/N:** Not any more mine than it was earlier this week.

* * *

 **VIII.** **The Shakespeare Code**

* * *

The young man walked out of the shop to fetch milk, leaving his disappointed co-owner behind him. Larry Nightingale was a good friend, and a good guy in a pinch, but he didn't want to stay just friends, and he had a hard time accepting that Sally Sparrow wanted to know how that strange young woman had gotten a hold of the transcript Larry had made of a no-less strange conversation held in Wester Drumlins before she committed to anything else. _Someone_ had to have given her all the information she'd had, transcript included, and would have given Billy Shipton the exact time he could call her safely. Apparently, that someone also thought Billy calling her before he technically met her for the first time would have resulted in the universe collapsing – whatever that meant. That someone supposedly was a time traveller. And, as it happened, that someone might, just at that time, be standing just in front of her shop – small woman, peroxide blonde hair, short dark purple jacket, frowning as she checked one of the old books on display.

Sally gulped; she looked at the woman, the folder on the counter that had been the source of the earlier argument with Larry, then at the woman again – she was entering the shop now, with a warm "Hello!"

"You're the Bad Wolf, aren't you?" Sally said breathlessly.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"The Bad Wolf. Time traveller. Reached out to me somehow when you got stuck in 1969."

That earned Sally a puzzled look. "I'm going to get stuck in 1969?"

Sally looked desperately at the other woman, wishing she weren't acting like the pair were strangers – and then it clicked. "Of course! You're a time traveller, all of that is still in your future! Then it means – it was me, it was me all along!"

"And who would you be?"

Sally ignored the question, grabbing her folder and walking over to the other woman. "Listen" she said, "like I just said, sometime, you're going to get stuck in 1969, and when you do, it's very important you have this with you" and she pushed the folder in the other woman's hands.

"… sure? I imagine you do something to get me unstuck or something?"

"Everything you need to know is inside" Sally said with a big smile.

"And who are you?" the woman asked again. "Don't take it the wrong way, but there's only a few people who call me Bad Wolf."

"That's how you introduced yourself. And I'm Sally Sparrow."

"Nice to meet you, then" the woman replied with a tentative smile as the door of the shop opened behind her. "I'm Rose Tyler, the other name is just a weird – thing."

"She's Rose Tyler?" Larry's voice made from behind Rose. "The Bad Wolf is Rose Tyler?"

Sally blanched. "Oh God, that's right! You shouldn't be here!"

"Sorry, what?"

"UNIT is looking all over the place for a Rose Tyler after what happened at Lazarus Industries" Larry supplied; unlike his partner, he looked rather pleased. "It's all a bit hush-hush of course, I bet it's because of the whole time traveller thing, but they're offering good money should someone find you."

"Larry, don't!"

Rose turned to the young man and pointedly stared at the cell phone in the young man's hand. "I wouldn't get me captured if I were you" she warned him. "If something happens making it so I can't help your friend out of whatever it is she found herself facing, the universe might collapse because of the paradox."

"Oh, come on" the young man said dismissively. "All UNIT want from you is testimony, they made it as clear as it gets."

"Larry…"

The grin and the complete about-face surprised the young man. "Why didn't you say so in the first place?" Rose said, walking towards him. "Still it's like you said, time traveller info, all a bit hush-hush, and you never know what government agency might be listening in on the conversation."

Larry frowned. "True."

"I'll make that phone safe" Rose said, extending her hand. "Make sure the secret doesn't reach the wrong ears."

"… right!" Larry said with an embarrassed smile, handing over the phone.

"I can't believe you're doing that" Sally said from behind Rose.

"It's okay! See, she's okay with it! And what is that thing?"

"Sonic screwdriver" Rose replied, activating it. The phone shorted, its screen cracked; Rose dropped it hastily, and the device exploded the moment it touched the floor.

"What the hell did you do that for?" Larry shouted.

"Made sure the secret doesn't reach the wrong ears" Rose replied, pocketing her screwdriver, all traces of cheerfulness gone. She stared at the man, her gaze unsettling with the dark purple contacts she'd chosen for the day. "Don't mess with time. Billions of people die when someone does."

The Bad Wolf walked past Larry and stepped outside the shop, folder in hand. The young man turned back to his partner.

"Sally, we can still call and-"

"What did you do that for?" Sally shot back, glaring at him. "She saves our lives and you repay her by trying to sell her out?"

"All those guys said they want to do is talk, it wouldn't have hurt anyone!" Larry protested.

"She's the time traveller, she said UNIT want to capture her, and you've decided you know better!"

Larry harrumphed. "I didn't mean it like I know better, it's just it can't be that bad – I mean, you know her, if UNIT want more, it's not like they can keep a leash on the Big Bad Wolf."

"Was it about the money, then?"

"Of course it wasn't about the money" the young man said, blushing. "It wasn't the money."

"Then what did you do that for?" Sally stared at her partner, who looked back uncomfortably. Then it clicked. And she marched outside, not sparing Larry a glance as she walked past him.

"Sally, wait!"

"Don't follow me!" she ordered, and she took off, having caught sight of a familiar dark purple jacket in the distance, breaking into a jog to catch up.

Sally caught up enough to call the other woman after she'd turned twice, finding herself in a dead end and in front of a familiar looking blue box.

"Rose, wait!"

The false blonde turned, looking puzzled as she noticed Sally. "What is it?"

"I wanted to apologize" Sally said breathlessly. "I never meant for Larry to tell on you."

"He meant well" Rose dismissed. "Thought UNIT want a chat, though it beats me why they think the pair of you should have known anything about me, except apparently you do. Speaking of which, I really shouldn't linger, paradoxes really are as bad as I just told your boyfriend."

"Not my boyfriend" Sally snapped. Then her expression turned frightened. "Where's the folder? What did you do with it?"

Rose gave her another puzzled look. "Pockets?"

"It wouldn't fit in your pockets!"

"Bigger on the inside?"

"That's not possible!"

"Time travel?"

Sally blinked. "Seriously?"

"About the pockets? Yes."

"Oh!" A flash of recognition, then Sally grinned. "They're like your time machine, then, your pockets."

"You've been inside the TARDIS?"

"Yeah!" Sally's grin grew wider.

"Don't tell me why" Rose cautioned, "better I don't get spoiled."

"Is it bad enough a risk that you wouldn't…?"

The cheerful look turned into one that was a bit hopeful, and Rose smiled. "Get in" she said, opening the door of the TARDIS and holding it for Sally.

The girl didn't need telling twice. She broke into a run, barging into the control room, dancing a little jig once inside. "I can't believe I'm back in here!"

"Just be careful with the spoilers" Rose said, also smiling as she closed the door. "Also, you really should hang onto something, I'm not always the best at piloting the old girl."

"What, failed your time driver's license or something?" Sally said, her good humour infectious.

"Have no idea whether there's one" Rose replied with a grin of her own. "Sure I'd have failed!"

"Then this should be fun!"

"Hopefully this will be one of the quieter trips, yeah?" Rose's expression turned a bit sterner. "One trip. As a thank you. Any time and place, just not in 1969, or anywhere and when and one connected with whatever I'll ask you to do when I get stuck in 1969."

At this, Sally visibly deflated. "Oh."

"You wanted to visit someone you've lost, didn't you?"

"A friend" she said. "One from when I found this time machine."

Rose shook her head sadly. "We can't. Crossing into established events is dangerous, very dangerous. Change one thing that makes another thing contradict a third thing you know should have happened, you cause a disaster. Same as me not being able to do whatever I will be doing to help you in 1969."

"I'm sorry" Sally said, looking genuinely contrite. "I didn't mean to suggest something bad."

"Don't have kittens over it" Rose said with a kind smile. "Not a time traveller, can't expect you to automatically guess all the rules." She looked thoughtfully at Sally. "Tell you what, saw you sold antique books."

"Yeah" Sally confirmed. Then she brightened. "Shakespeare."

"What?"

"I want to see Shakespeare."

"Shakespeare it is!" Rose busied herself around the central node, manoeuvring controls Sally didn't have the faintest idea were. "Alright, then, lady and gentlewoman" Rose began as she moved around, "my name is Rose Tyler, and I will be your captain for this flight. This TARDIS is headed for London in 1599 AD, and will probably touch down within 30 years and 5,000 kilometres from the mark. Please take a moment to groan about the lack of seatbelts and the murderous aliens we have approximately one in three chances of meeting. And as always, have a fun and pleasant flight with Bad Wolf Airlines."

"You're not serious."

"About the Bad Wolf Airlines?"

"About the murderous aliens. Tell me you're not serious."

"No, I'm jeopardy-friendly" Rose replied with a grin.

"Well, Shakespeare was never murdered in 1599, so we're safe!" Sally replied with a grin of her own.

"On your head be it – and, take-off!"

* * *

A few moments later, Rose was inviting Sally Sparrow to step out first. The wispy woman did, and stopped just a metre shy of the TARDIS outside.

"This is completely insane" she said, looking around, entranced, at the narrow, torch-lit streets of late 16th century London. "We did it. We travelled in time!"

"Travel two steps backwards" Rose said as someone above Sally shouted " _Gare à l'eau_!"

"Why?"

Rose sprung, pulling the other woman just out of the way of the contents of the barrel emptied by the man above them.

"Yeah, sorry about that" Rose said sheepishly. "16th century London, no plumbing, no indoor toilets."

"Don't worry, the travel's worth putting up with the smell" Sally said, then she winced. "Is it always this bad, though?"

"It's always different. Different times, different places, different smells."

"Can we move about?" Sally asked.

"Why couldn't we?"

"Well, both of us are women, we're not exactly dressed normal for the era, and I can't really speak old English."

"The TARDIS translates for you, when you speak to them you will really 16th century English, nobody will really notice if we don't make a point of showing it, and just walk about like we own the place."

"What about changing time?" Sally asked, looking a bit worried this time.

"Well, we shouldn't try to, but as long as we stick to observing events it's fine. Butterfly effect only works if it's a really big butterfly."

"Bump into someone, push them under a cart by accident, ten thousand descendants cease to exist?"

"Watch where you're going?" Rose replied with a tongue-in-teeth grin.

"I'm serious!" Sally protested.

"It's fine" Rose reassured her. "Like I said, we observe, we refrain from doing anything Earth-shattering, we find Shakespeare, you guys have a little chat, and we get back home for News at Ten."

"And I give Larry a good slap." Sally sighed, then turned a bit testier. "This isn't some kind of consolation trip for getting my partner and me at loggerheads, is it?"

"Told you it's to thank you" Rose replied. "I normally travel alone. It's a bit risky, that lifestyle" she added, looking uneasy.

Sally blinked. "Oh. Like those Weeping Angels in-"

"Spoilers!" Rose cut her off.

"You're going to find out about it anyway" Sally countered, "it's all in that file I gave you."

"And worry about how I'll end up in 1969 so much I stay away from wherever it is I have to go? Not likely" Rose said.

"Makes sense." Sally said thoughtfully. Then she brightened. "So. London. Globe Theatre – must be brand new, and there might even be a representation going. Go there. See Shakespeare. Come back. News at Ten. My flat. Girl talk. Go!"

Sally took off, and Rose followed with a smile. "Donna would love her."

Rose quickly caught up. "This is insane" Sally said with wonder. "Five minutes ago we were in London."

"We're still in London" Rose said glibly.

"We've gone back in time! It's like a wholly different world! Although…" she looked somewhere to her right. "Well… That would be recycling – the collecting manure bit of it. Does that count as familiar?" Her eyes turned elsewhere. "Those two over there are having a water cooler moment, does that count too?"

A man walked past them, uttering an "…and the Earth will be consumed by flame!"

Sally turned to Rose, who was looking at her mirthfully. "Counts as global warning, right?"

"You never know" Rose replied, grinning. "Might be a real prophet."

Sally blinked. "Great Fire. Right."

"Oi, not what I meant!"

"And look!" Sally pointed, past the street corner they had just passed, at a structure far larger than the others. "Here we are. Globe Theatre – except it's not really a globe, they couldn't really manage that, so it's built with fourteen sides."

"It's been a while since I was traveling with someone else and they were the guide" Rose said, smiling. "Suppose you want to go in?"

Sally cringed. "We don't have any money."

"Don't need any. Got a standing invitation." Rose took out her psychic paper and showed it to her companion.

"Dame Rose Tyler and Miss Sally Sparrow, personal guests of Mister William Shakespeare?"

"Yep."

"Are you really a Dame?"

"Yep" Rose said, popping the 'p'. "Although that one's a bit wibbly-wobbly, what with me being knighted two hundred and eighty years in the future, but once a Knight, always a Knight."

Sally laughed. "I'd love to watch the court proceedings to determine the temporality of that one."

Rose cringed. "Let's not."

"And does Shakespeare know he invited us?"

"Where would the fun be if he did?"

* * *

The psychic paper worked exactly like Rose had said, allowing the two women entry and places on a balcony. The smell inside was a bit too overpowering for Sally, and Rose extracted a bottle of Cologne from one of her bigger-on-the-inside pockets and dabbed a handkerchief for Sally. Once past that difficulty, the two got to watch the end of the play, Sally quietly filling in a few details for Rose, like why the women's parts were all played by men – the time-traveling woman confessed very quickly she didn't even have her A-levels and felt a lot more out of place than Sally did.

Soon enough, the play ended, and the actors were regrouped on the stage, bowing for the crowd and saluting, cheered on by an enthusiastic crowd.

"This is incredible" Sally said to Rose. "So worth putting up with the jostling and the smell!"

"As long as you're not bringing home photos from your cell phone."

"Left it at the shop" Sally said. "And it'd be a bit stupid, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, you're good" Rose said with a grin.

"Good enough to see Shakespeare?"

"We'll find out."

"I'm not waiting. Author!" Sally shouted, her call soon reprised by the crowd – and the author responded eventually, cheerfully saluting and passing the line of actors with a little prance, the entire audience clapping and cheering as Shakespeare took time to soak it in, and to salute people on all sides of the theatre.

"This is amazing" Sally said giddily. "I'm going to hear Shakespeare talk! The master of words, a pure genius, arguably the best playwright in history!"

"I wonder what people thought about that in the 50th century" Rose mused, earning a flat stare from Sally Sparrow.

"Shh. No weird comments now. Just listen… soak it in. The man with the best words is about to speak!"

And the best words were: "Oh! Shut your big fat mouths!"

The crowd exploded in laughter. Sally was left gobsmacked, and Rose giggled. "Historian, meet history!"

"Oh, shut up" Sally groused, returning her attention to Shakespeare.

"You've got excellent taste, I'll give you that" the man said, before another quip – "oh! That's a wig!"

There was laughter again, and a very, very embarrassed person somewhere in the crowd. "I know what you're all saying!" Shakespeare resumed, traipsing the stage. "Love's Labour Lost, that's a funny ending, isn't it? It just stops! Will the boys get the girls?" He stopped. "Well, don't get your hose in a tangle. You'll find out soon."

There was cheering and a squeal from Sally, which surprised Rose.

"What?"

"I'll tell you later! When? When?" Sally shouted, joining the rest of the audience in asking.

"All in good time! You don't rush a genius" was Shakespeare's reply, and Sally's face fell as the man bowed. Then he jerked back upright, causing Rose to narrow her eyes. "When?" he echoed. And then his "tomorrow night!" was greeted by an explosion of cheers, Sally joining in and whooping.

" _What?_ " Rose insisted.

"It's one of the biggest mysteries there are, that there isn't a sequel to be found!" Sally replied, grinning from ear to ear. "Academics have wondered for years whether Shakespeare ever wrote _Love's Labour's Won_ , and now he's announcing it premieres tomorrow night!" And indeed, on stage, Shakespeare had announced just that, answered by more cheering and applause.

Sally sent Rose a pleading look. "Can we stay until tomorrow night?"

"I'm interested in the mystery of why the play would have vanished, honestly" Rose said pensively. "Plus, one moment he was asking for time, and the next he says 'tomorrow night'" she remarked. "That was quite the about-face."

Not that it seemed to bother Sally. "Oh, I wish Larry were there in the end" she said. "Could really use someone capable of writing shorthand now."

Rose sent her a sharp look. "How exactly would you explain unearthing that play in 2008 England?"

Sally deflated. "Oh. I didn't think of that."

"Don't worry" said Rose with a reassuring smile. "You're not used to what can be done and what can't. Generally speaking, when you're time travelling, the smallest your footprint, the better."

"Alright. But we can still stay, can't we?" Sally asked hopefully.

Rose grinned. "It'll be our little secret – having watched _Love's Labour's Won_ – and perhaps finding out the reason it's gone missing in the first place."

"I can't wait to find out!" Sally did, dancing a little jig – which stopped as suddenly as it had started. "How are we going to follow him?"

"Give me a moment" Rose replied, putting her hands over her eyes and mostly hiding them. It felt a little cheap to use her ability to look at potential futures to find out where a man would be going next, but Rose had a far more serious reason to look: after the twist about when _Love's Labour's Won_ would be played, she was wondering whether someone was influencing Shakespeare in a way she could discern.

But there was nothing special to discern in Shakespeare's possible futures, just an inn named 'The Elephant', some conversations, some writing, and perfectly normal activities Rose really didn't want to look at more closely; she let the visions go and removed her hands from her face.

"Alright, let's go meet Mister Shakespeare" Rose said.

Sally stared at her. "You know where we have to go."

"Yep" Rose replied, popping the 'p'.

"You did a Weeping Angel thing and you know where we have to go."

Rose quirked an eyebrow. "Can you stop mentioning these things I really shouldn't know about?"

Sally kept staring at her for another instant, then she groaned. "Right. Spoilers."

Rose grinned. "I have a feeling I'm going to have an interesting time in 1969. Also, off-topic question, is Mister Shakespeare married?"

Sally sent her a puzzled look. "He is. Why do you ask?"

"Two young women dropping on him in the middle of the night?"

Sally blushed furiously. "Oh."

* * *

The Elephant might have had high standards for its time, it still made Sally a little queasy from the mix of odours. The young woman had ended up dropping a quick remark about introducing better hygiene standards ahead of time being worth the paradox, to Rose's grim amusement. Sally's recurring complaints about their environment did drive a point home: she wasn't really companion material, and only put up with the unfamiliarity and discomfort of being in a different time because she had a definite goal.

 _One trip_ , Rose reminded herself. _One trip, then back to Sally's shop. Martha's mother was right, it's too dangerous to be around me. I'm no Doctor._ Rose shook her head energetically. The last thing she wanted to remember right now was her time spent scouring the London newspapers for the obituary bulletin which would tell her which of the Jones sisters she had failed to save, or how she'd ended up crashing and bawling on poor Tish's grave in the dead of night, when there would have been nobody to watch her ask for a forgiveness she may never get.

That had been two years before in linear time for Rose. Since then, she'd tried to spot a trail to find again the elusive Professor Song, without any success whatsoever. All she'd learned was from Minister Saxon, who had told her the enigmatic woman had said Rose would see her again when she'd be needed – an inexplicable departure from the promise Rose was certain she remembered to watch over her, but it wasn't like she could _find_ River Song.

Rose had eventually given up on looking for her, at least for the foreseeable future. She'd spent the better part of the year and a half since in a 50th century library – _The_ _Library_ , Rose thought ruefully, still impressed about having found a planet full of books – looking up all kinds of subjects as she tried to educate herself in a broad manner. She remembered quite well how diverse the Doctor's knowledge had been, and while she wasn't going to be his equal anytime soon – if ever – at least she'd be taking a similar approach to learning. Of course, at this point, it meant wide holes in Rose's knowledge and a lot of it being superficial, as Sally's superior Shakespearian culture was evidencing.

Speaking of whom, the young woman was looking quite crossly at the time traveller and making an impatient gesture with her hand, mimicking-

"Oh, I'm sorry" Rose said sheepishly, retrieving her psychic paper and showing it to the gruff owner of the inn. "Dame Rose Tyler and her lady-in-waiting Sally Sparrow, here to-"

"I know what you're here for, no need for elaboration" the man cut her off. He gave Rose a dark look, then nodded towards one of the waitresses, a robust and kind-looking blonde woman. "Dolly will take you upstairs."

They trotted upstairs, arriving on the landing just in time to hear Shakespeare and at least two of his actors arguing about _Love's Labour's Won_ – to be fair to the actors, the playwright _was_ expecting them to read, memorize and rehearse an act's worth of play he had yet to write, and even Rose's limited experience with theatre, centred around school plays, was enough to understand it was going to be very hard on Shakespeare's men, having to be ready for a play the author would be scribbling during the-

"Hey, nonny, nonny. Sit right down here, one on each side of me. You two, get sewing. Off you go!"

 _Correction: they have to be ready for a play the author will be done scribbling tomorrow by noon_ Rose said to herself as Sally swept inside Shakespeare's room, plopped down next to him and looked at Rose meaningfully. The servant Dolly seemed completely unsurprised at the turn of events, going by the way she told the two actors seated with Shakespeare how the author had found his new muses, at which Rose coughed.

"Sorry, I prefer my women curly-haired, temperamental and incapable of answering a straight question" she said, earning herself shocked looks from all but Shakespeare, who laughed heartily.

"That's one of the straightest admissions I've ever heard, but I take it your companion has different leanings", and the writer turned his attention back to a glowing Sally Sparrow. "Such unusual clothes" he commented. "So… fitted."

"Oh, verily" Sally answered, "dost thee like what was wrought in yon world and brought thither?"

Shakespeare looked at Rose with puzzlement, and the time traveller cringed. "Does the young angel speak any non-Gaelic language?"

"Actually, she's just as English as you and me; she's only trying a little too hard to fit in after being many years apart from here" Rose replied, fishing her psychic paper from her pocket and holding it out for Shakespeare to read. "This is Miss Sally Sparrow, and I'm Dame Rose Tyler of the Powell Estate."

Shakespeare pointed at the foil. "Interesting. That bit of paper, it's blank."

Sally frowned from her place to the man's right. "No, I can see clearly written what Dame Tyler just said."

"And I say it's blank."

Rose cringed again. "And I say better late than never to learn psychic paper doesn't work on genii either".

"Geniuses" Sally corrected automatically, edging even closer to Shakespeare, but the author's attention stayed focused on Rose.

"Psychic. Never heard that word before, and words are my trade. Who are you exactly? More to the point, who is this lovely angel?"

"Er… Sally Sparrow?"

Shakespeare turned his head back to her and grinned. "Oh, of course you are, silly me. And where are you from?"

"I'm from London, actually" said Sally, blushing as she realized just how close she was to the famous playwright, and shivering when he replied almost languidly.

"Your clothing certainly looks out of place for a Londoner."

"I'm from London in Canada" Sally said breathlessly.

"They have a London in Canada?"

"Yes, founded in 1826."

"Sally" Rose said with a note of warning. She didn't get a chance to intervene – a man screeched an "Out of the way!" from behind her, and the time traveller barely had time to step aside for a bearded man in long robes and cap, also wearing a heavy glittery collar.

"Hold hard a moment" the man ordered. "This is abominable behaviour. A new play with no warning? I demand to see a script, Mister Shakespeare. As Master of Revels, every new script must be registered at my office and examined by me before it can be performed."

"Tomorrow morning, Milord Tilney" Shakespeare replied defensively. "First thing in the morning, I'll send it 'round."

"I don't work to your schedule, you work to mine" Tilney replied harshly. "The script, now."

"I can't" Shakespeare returned just as harshly.

"Then tomorrow's performance is cancelled" Tilney replied, this time in a deceptively quiet tone, which was mimicked by Sally Sparrow.

"Milord Tilney, you work according to the Queen's schedule, don't you?"

"Well, of course I do" the man replied in a falsely sweet voice. "What does this have to do with you?"

"Nothing, but Dame Tyler here holds her Majesty's order that the play be performed tomorrow night" Sally said with a falsely sweet smile – fortunately, the Master of Revels couldn't see Rose gape like a fish for an instant. The stunned young woman automatically took out her psychic paper and hold it for the Master of Revels to "inspect", which the man did, looking like he'd swallowed a lemon when he looked up at Shakespeare again.

"Well, then, if her Majesty intends to attend, I suppose…" Tilney's voice was very dry. He nodded briefly. "Tomorrow morning."

The nobleman swept away, leaving behind a shocked Rose, a radiant Sally and a bemused Shakespeare. "This psychic paper of yours actually does work" the playwright said with wonder.

"Leaving the teeny, tiny, itsy bitty detail of somehow convincing the Queen she authorized this play" Rose fumed, getting out of her shocked state. "Are you out of your mind, Sally?"

"Look, _Love's Labour's Won_ is going to be played!" Sally said enthusiastically. "This is historic!"

"Next time, step on a butterfly" Rose replied harshly before she stormed out.

"Bit temperamental, your friend, isn't she?" Shakespeare said with a cocked eyebrow.

"She'll get over it" Sally replied, blushing again. "The most important thing, right now, is that _Love's Labour's Won_ is going to be played."

"Right now, there's a more important thing than finishing _Love's Labour's Won_ " Shakespeare murmured, and he closed the distance with the young woman.

* * *

Out in the streets of London, Rose was fuming as she headed back to the TARDIS. She hadn't been trying to trick the Master of Revels with her psychic paper – she had been too shocked by how reckless her temporary companion had proven to be, and the paper had shown what the strongest wills in the room, Sally's and Shakespeare's, had wanted on it, potentially causing a terrifying mess in the process. Like, a Reaper-inducing mess, had Sally Sparrow succeeded in allowing the continued existence of a play the girl herself knew first-hand had been lost.

That was the reason Rose was anxious to get back to the TARDIS but not trying to summon the old girl to her – the one time she had done something comparably stupid, the Doctor had been unable to access the TARDIS, and the last thing Rose wanted to add on top of a potential paradox was conjuring a TARDIS from who knew what other time and place – she knew by experience it was entirely doable! _Well, here's another reason to stop acting like I'm the Doctor_ Rose lectured herself, _if I needed the reminder after that fiasco with Adam Mitchell: I'm definitely incapable of picking a proper companion._

Fortunately, the TARDIS was still fully there when Rose accessed it, and the young woman let out an explosive sigh of relief the moment she'd closed the door behind her. "Oh, thank God, it's not that bad, it's not the worst, there's no Reapers coming, I didn't just destroy the world." And then, the sobering realisation. "Oh no. It means that play is _still_ not making it in spite of Sally's best efforts, which, yes, best case scenario, isn't all that bad, but worst case scenario, someone else stops the idiot, and that someone might just-"

Rose took off even faster than she'd got to the TARDIS, running like a life depended on it – which it might have, except it didn't, or at least not from the rather serene picture the young woman could see once she'd made it back to the Elephant Inn, with Shakespeare asleep on his desk, snoozing over his script, and the back of the head and the bare shoulders of an equally unconscious Sally poking from under the bedsheets.

 _Talk about rebounding_ Rose couldn't help but think, _and she and that Larry weren't even in a relationship to begin with._ Still, that was a relieving sight, one Rose could afford to sleep on as long as she stuck close. She turned away to walk out, earning herself a kind but misunderstanding look of pity from the adolescent maid who'd arrived on the floor while Rose was checking on her companion. The young woman returned a half-smile, half-grimace and went downstairs to rent a room for a good night of sleep – still clothed. The bedsheets were definitely too coarse for Rose's taste (she supposed Sally withstood them out of blissful exhaustion), and she hadn't brought any night clothes to change into.

The last thing the time traveller had expected was being shaken awake by the playwright himself.

"Dame Tyler" the man murmured, earning himself a drowsy "Not interested" which only got Rose shaken harder. "No time for that, you need to come, it's your friend."

"Not my friend" Rose groaned, "is an idiot."

"She's dead. You need to come."

Rose started upright, head bumping hard into Shakespeare's chin in the process, which caused him to lose balance and fall on his behind. Any potential for humour in the situation was lost to Rose, however. She jumped out of her bed and ran straight for the playwright's suite. Sally was in exactly the same position as the night before, with perhaps an inch or two more of skin showing from when Shakespeare would have checked on her, and the girl's skin was cold when Rose took hold of her head to try and take a look at a face frozen in surprise.

Rose quietly let Sally's head rest back down on the coarse pillows and straightened to look at the playwright who'd by now caught up, chin adorned with a shiner. "What happened" she asked.

"I don't know" Shakespeare said. "She definitely was awake the last I remember, and then I must have fallen asleep on my script."

"Well, _that's_ helpful" Rose gritted, using sarcasm to push away her sense of horror. "You just fell asleep and she just fell dead."

"I'm not lying" Shakespeare replied hotly.

"And I'm not caring" Rose shot back in the same tone, bending back down and shifting the body around so that it would be front up. "This was definitely not worth finding out why _Love's Labour's Won_ wouldn't be authorized by the Master of Revels."

"I've finished the script" the playwright said quietly. "I don't remember doing it, but I've finished it."

"Wonderful" Rose growled, and she fished her sonic screwdriver out of her pocket. "Now do us a favour and shut that door close, don't really fancy people watching this.

The man obliged, and then let out a swear when he saw Rose trailing what was to him a whirring silvery stick emitting pink light over Sally's form. "That's witchcraft!"

"No, it's science" Rose gritted, and then her tone lost its bite. "Okay, now _that's_ scary. Girl died of a stab wound to the heart, except there's no visible stab wound."

" _That's_ witchcraft" Shakespeare muttered.

"No, still science" Rose countered. "No idea exactly how that worked, but if there's one thing I know, it's that there's a scientific explanation of some kind – there always is one."

"Like witchcraft science?"

"No, like science science" Rose said exasperatedly as she stood back up, covering Sally entirely with the bedsheet. "And take my word for it, you wouldn't understand the specifics – heck, _I_ wouldn't understand the specifics and I've got years of experience dealing with that kind of stuff. And show me that script, I need to copy what you don't remember writing and try to make sense of it, since I can't make sense from what happened to Sally."

"That's going to take too long, I've got to get that script to Tilney and you've got to get the authorities to deal with your friend's death."

"Not my friend" Rose mumbled, making for the desk and starting to spread out the last sheets from the script.

"What are you doing?" Shakespeare protested.

"Just show me the last bloody line you remember writing" Rose growled, and the playwright obliged with a grimace – only to gape at the young woman taking out a rectangular object from another pocket and flashing lights at the incriminated sheets, miniature images of them showing on the rectangular object one after another.

"And you're still insist this isn't witchcraft" the playwright said with disbelief.

"Yep" Rose said, nervously popping the 'p'. She trained her eyes on Shakespeare. "By the way, why did you come and get me rather than the proper authorities?"

"Because your not-quite-friend said you know about arcane subjects and can travel in time" the playwright replied, "and I just can't see how you can rationally explain what happened here or what Sally said you can do."

"Well, like I said, in my experience, everything has a scientific explanation."

"Can you explain why Peter Streete spoke of witches, then?"

"Who's Peter Streete?"

"The builder of the Globe Theatre" Shakespeare supplied.

"Oh. He's the one who thought up the tetradecagonal design?"

"Yes." Shakespeare frowned. "He wasn't going to initially, going for a dodecagon was what was thought of at first, but one day he came up like a man on a mission. That's when he drew up the new sketches. Fourteen sides, not twelve. Said it worked better for the sound, and after trying it I'm inclined to believe that."

"Was that when he started to speak about witches?" Rose asked, earning herself an apologetic smile.

"Oh no, that was when he lost his mind – it happened one month after he'd completed the construction. He's been in Bedlam since."

Rose made a face. "Spiffing. So, to sum it up, we're dealing with something that believes the number fourteen has significance, passes itself for a witch, can destroy a heart without actually touching skin and can manipulate people into doing things whether they are conscious or not."

"So you _do_ think witchcraft has been used here" the playwright said grimly.

"No, I think some kind of creature with powers resembling a witch's has been manipulating and killing people like Peter Streete, poor Sally or you." Rose gave the author a very grim look. "I can't convince you not to _première_ your play tonight, can I?"

"We're not going to play it on any other night" Shakespeare said quietly. "Tilney's bound to notice you and Sally lied to him about the Queen attending. He's not going to let it be played a second time."

"Well, that answers that question" Rose muttered. "So not worth it." She walked back to the bed where Sally's corpse lay. "Can you leave, close the door behind you and stay outside for five minutes, please?"

"Why?"

"So I can take poor Sally's body away" Rose said thickly, her composure starting to break. "She comes from a place very far away from here. I can't leave her to be buried at night in a common grave in a place that's so far away her home, and that's what would happen if we did this properly."

"And you're not really one for property, are you, Rose Tyler?" Shakespeare said soberly.

* * *

Rose moved the TARDIS away as soon as she'd conjured it around herself and poor Sally. She did not quite return to 2008 London – she had no idea how she was going to explain what had happened to Larry Nightingale and really didn't want a confrontation with a young man mad with grief and already intent on selling her to UNIT ending in a paradox she couldn't escape. She _had_ saved Sally Sparrow, sometime in her future.

"Just to fail you later" Rose muttered as she lay down the young woman's body in the TARDIS' infirmary. She set up a preserving field around it and returned to the control room, and programmed a course back to the Library, wondering at the same time whether her priorities were straight and trying to understand just why she had a nagging feeling something was about to go terribly wrong and she had very little time to waste.

Rose landed the TARDIS in an alcove in the main hall, as usual. She was a bit surprised at finding the place nearly empty, in spite of it being the height of day. The shifty attitudes among the few present were also something new. Rose headed straight for the main desk, and heard the familiar whirring of the greeting device with a live-looking human face. That had spooked the young woman at first, but she'd gotten used to it over time.

"I am courtesy node seven one zero slash aqua" the construct said in an artificial voice. "This aspect has been actualized to match your personal preferences. Please enjoy the library and respect the personal access codes of all your fellow readers."

"Always the same message, time and time and again, they're so boring" a woman drawled from right behind Rose's shoulder, making her jump and whirl around, finding herself almost bumping her face with a middle-aged woman just shy of Rose's height, with sharp traits, intense blue eyes, short, voluminous dark brown hair and an impeccable sense of fashion – for the early 21st century.

"Let me guess" the woman kept firing off, "you're acting so surprised because you are so surprised. First meeting out of order with another time traveller, one is always a little at a loss and the other trying to get their counterpart not to run the hell away from them, and I'll admit I did quite the runner when it was me."

Rose swallowed. "So, I do know you."

"Give the woman a medal. No, I'm not telling you when", and the other time traveller leaned to whisper in Rose's ear. "It's my little secret."

Rose startled away, bumping into the desk behind her while the other woman had a little, high-pitched laugh.

"Visitor, please refrain from accidentally damaging Felman Lux Corporation property" the courtesy node said, and the other woman rolled her eyes.

"Like you don't have teensy tiny bigger problems to worry about than scratched tops. I'm Missy, by the way" she added, returning her attention to Rose, "and don't worry, I'm not going to kiss you silly this time around."

"Kiss me silly?"

"Whoops." Missy winked and pulled an exaggerated face. "Something to look backward to."

"I think you meant forward" Rose said confusedly.

"Forward to you, backward to me."

"You might want to consider looking back, if not backward" Rose said hesitantly, having noticed someone behind Missy.

"Oh yes, average rude human male stressed like their best friend just died" the woman said in a bored voice, before she twirled to face the angry man, not intimidated in the slightest by someone twice her width and a good foot higher. "Oh, I almost got it right – bigger than average human male. And why the frowny face, except for the part about your best friend just dying?"

"You just shove off" the man growled, joining to his word a gesture of a huge arm and hand – which got stopped by two short fingers.

"Rude, rude, rude."

The man stumbled back. "How did you do that?"

Missy's eyes rolled again. "Talk about lack of imagination – wake up!" she said, bopping the man's nose with the same two fingers. "It's the 50th century, aliens are commonplace and they're not all as soft as humans." She twirled back to Rose and nudged her to the side. "Come on, let's step aside and let Mister Unimaginative ask the question he already knows the answer to. It's not like he's going to get his answer anyway."

"You're a bit-"

"Bananas, yes, but there's nothing wrong with that, bananas are good, just be mindful you don't end up with excess potassium. You like bananas, don't you? Naughty, naughty girl."

Rose was startled by that but got no time to think about it. Behind her, the huge rude man had another outburst.

"What do you mean, Lee's been saved? What happened to him?"

"Lee McAvoy left the library" the courtesy node answered. "Lee McAvoy has been saved."

"Oh dear. Time's running a little short, Miss Tyler" Missy drawled, "you might want to get a move on looking up whatever it was you wanted to be looking up."

"Can you help me?" Rose asked in return.

"Depends on what you need help with. Go on, don't be shy, I'm probably not going to bite you in public."

"Right." Rose swallowed, taking an uncomfortable step back, earning herself a cocked eyebrow. "I'm looking for some type of creature that passes itself for a witch on 16th century Earth, can manipulate people and kill them without touching them, and somehow, getting a play's script down like they like and the number fourteen is important for them."

"Narrows it down quite a bit. Go through that door to the far back left, follow the hall, follow the next hall, that galactic sector is the fourth row to the right and fifth shelf for the entrance."

"That galactic sector?"

"Oh, right, it's not going to be very helpful if I don't tell you what system you're looking up" Missy said with dark amusement, and then she had another little laugh at Rose's impatient look. "Alright, alright, I'll stop being a tease. You're looking up Rexel, really exciting xylo-organisms eating livestock – don't worry, nothing to do with what's really going on here, regular spelling aids are just _boring_."

"Thank you" Rose said, earning herself a scandalized look.

"Oh, now, that's cheating. How am I going to ask you to say something nice if you're undercutting me like that?"

"You're making the Doctor look sane in comparison, you know" Rose mumbled.

"Doctor which?" Missy grinned. "I was supposed to ask 'who?', wasn't I?"

"You know the Doctor" Rose said, dumbfounded.

"Course I know him, good friend of mine, knew him since forever. Pity he's gone. Now off you trot, planets to look up, monsters to overcome, world to save." The grin turned into a commiserating look. "No wages earned. Humans are a bit thankless, but don't worry, I'll see about correcting that." Now the look turned scandalized. "You're still here?"

"Trying not to be rude?"

"Thankfully you've got the not-ginger part down pat."

"Rrright…"

Rose took off, a bit weirded out by the strange alien "woman". Whatever Missy's faults may have been, however, her directions did turn out to be accurate, and before long Rose Tyler was knowledgeable about Carrionites and knew exactly why she'd be going to Queen Elisabeth for a very, very awkward conversation about forbidding Shakespeare's latest play from ever making the Globe Theatre's stage. She made her way back to the main hall and thanked again the mysterious Missy, who was leaning on the side of the TARDIS when Rose returned, a wry look on her face.

"Works out for you, works out for me. Have fun with your witches" Missy said in lieu of parting words. She stepped back a bit, watching the Doctor's TARDIS vanish with its familiar whirring, her expression turning smug.

"Well, that takes care of that."

She pulled on her sleeve, revealing the vortex manipulator there, and looked at it as she set coordinates – and didn't punch it, something at the corner of her sight attracted her attention.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me" she said, rolling her eyes after spotting her second shadow. Then she shrugged. "Oh well. Convenient. I was done with what I needed this regeneration for anyway."

Missy did scream when she winked out of the hall. Then again, time travel without a capsule fresh off getting a third of yourself eaten alive was always going to be painful.

* * *

 **A/N:** **TheDoctorMulder** , as always, thanks for your kind words!

Tilney is the historic Master of Revels in that period. Since he wasn't dying in this version, might as well use the original...

Next stop, Blink. Letting potential paradoxes linger, nasty idea.


	10. IX - Blink

**A/N:** I tried blinking. I still didn't own Doctor Who after opening my eyes :(

* * *

 **IX. Blink**

* * *

At the end of her fall, Rose made a valiant attempt at staying on her feet, but the best that attempt could achieve was earn a participation award. She staggered backwards, hit some kind of brick wall and slid down ungracefully to find herself seated on a drenched pavement. There was one small mercy, in the form of a friendly voice.

"Will you look at what the cat dragged out!" the voice said enthusiastically. Then, more soberly. "Or maybe it's time, they're a bit hard to distinguish, I never remember which of them actually has nine lives."

"Hello, Missy" Rose replied hoarsely, closing her eyes in an attempt to avoid going from queasiness to emptying her stomach. She heard the rustling of clothes and felt the alien woman coming to fuss over her.

"You look like someone who thought time travel without a capsule would be a fun experience" she lectured. "Tut, tut, tut, that's a silly idea, I thought you knew a lot better than that – aren't you supposed to have a TARDIS to travel?"

"Didn't come here on purpose" Rose mumbled. "Doesn't matter anyway, just let me recover a bit and I'll be out of your hair."

"Nuh-uh. And what are you going to do, conjure your old girl out of thin air?"

Rose let out a small laugh. "This clearly isn't the first time you've met me either."

"Oooh, we meet again later!" Missy replied with clear excitement. Then she went back to fussing. "Now let's get you out of the rain, young lady, you'll catch death out there, maybe you already have – or maybe death caught you. Catches you. Will have caught you. Want me to make sure? I've only got an umbrella, but I could improvise."

"No, thank you" Rose groaned. "Could you use that umbrella for its intended purpose? I'm getting soaked here."

"Sure, take all the fun out of the situation" Missy replied with a tone leaving no doubt as to whether the words had been punctuated by an eye roll. "But first, up you stand. Or second, you might want to explain how you ended up in 1969. Or maybe first-and-a-half – let's do both at a time, shall we?"

Rose shivered; her eyes opened to look at the rain-plastered Missy, wearing exactly the same clothes she'd be wearing in their encounter at the Library. "This is 1969?"

Missy grinned. "Oooh, yummy eyes. Yummy girl." She brought her face very close to Rose's, lips less than an inch from touching.

"Wasn't I supposed to do something else first-and-a-half?" she said uncomfortably.

"You already know me, do you think I can get my priorities straight?" Missy whispered sensually.

"… yes?" Rose said hesitantly; she felt the wind of a heavy sigh on her face.

"You can be so boring at times." Missy moved away, and pulled Rose up energetically. "You know, if we're going to keep meeting, some day I'm going to have to make modifications in that pretty head of yours. That way of being down-to-earth, focused on what matters needs to go."

"What, are you going to try brain surgery on me or something?" Rose asked sarcastically.

"Why, if you're so kindly offering I just might" Missy replied giddily.

"That's reassuring" Rose groused. "So, 1969. Don't suppose you can tell me the exact date and where I am?"

"You're in London, it's February the first, and I thought you were leaving?"

"I am as soon as I can get to a quiet side street."

"This _is_ a quiet side street, observant girl. Good thing too. You made quite the racket when you appeared, and nobody cared. Then again, instant air displacement is always a noisy affair in that type of atmosphere."

Rose looked around, and frowned. "Alright, then. I suppose I shall be off?"

Missy grinned. "You're not taking me along for a trip?"

"I know for a fact you're a time and space traveller, you don't need me to show you the stars."

"In-co-rrect" Missy said, punctuating each syllable with a tap of her umbrella on Rose's leg.

"Ouch! What did you do that for?"

Missy cocked an eyebrow. "Bored. I'm stuck here without proper transportation, you know, I could use a lift to a vortex manipulator."

"And you know when and where to find one?" Rose asked.

"Oh yes. Just give me a lift to 2008 London and I'll be out of your hair in a jiffy. Wait, I'm not in your hair, and it's not going to happen unless by some sort of coincidence I stole your TARDIS, seriously messed with its transdimensional controls and reappeared in a blue telephone matchbox."

Rose cringed. "That can actually happen?"

"It can. Imagine, you're persuaded you're the right size for a human and CLAC! A garden spider pinches you off and brings dinner home to the spiderlings. Really would motivate you to research for a brutal arthropodicide."

Rose blanched at that. "Yeah, let's not do that when we get to 2008 London."

"Always the unfunny choice. You were going to call a taxi?"

"Oh, the old girl would love that" Rose mumbled. "Just give me a minute, I'm feeling a bit queasy still." The young woman frowned. "Come to think of it, so has the TARDIS ever since 1599."

"Should I assume something funny has happened in 1599?"

"Something funny alright, except for the whole we'll try to stick you full of arrows and bolts thing" Rose replied. "Nearly got myself arrested by Queen Elisabeth, got chased through half of London by her royal guard, and ended up in the Globe Theatre just in time to get William Shakespeare to save the world from Carrionites."

"Mankind nearly ending hardly rates as a stomach-upsetting event" Missy said matter-of-factly ("Thanks", said Rose). "See, a TARDIS tends to get stomach aches when something really wrong may soon happen, like something universe-ending or a space-time aberration walking by."

"Now that's reassuring" Rose mumbled. "Sure I can't persuade you to stick around a bit after we've reached 2008?"

"If we ever get there" Missy shot back, rolling her eyes. "Get a move on, guinea-girl."

"Alright, alright!"

Rose closed her eyes to avoid showing them illuminating themselves, and concentrated on her "sense" of the TARDIS. She had a slightly better idea of how that worked now, having learned the basics about Huon particles, but really, her knowledge of what she was doing was empirical, and right now, her experience told her something was going wrong. She could feel the TARDIS, but the more she pulled to her, the more resistance she felt – until she realized something _else_ was anchoring the ship where it was in space-time. Something which pulled a lot stronger than she was.

Rose opened her eyes and collapsed again, breathing heavily, with Missy looking at her with disapproval.

"Tut-tut… That wasn't very impressive, appetizing girl" the alien female said.

"There's something messing with the TARDIS" Rose replied hoarsely, "stops her from being attracted."

"So what you mean to say is we're both stuck in 1969 and you have no idea how we can get unstuck" Missy drawled, and then she sighed extravagantly. "So much for the Bad Wolf."

"Stuck in 1969" Rose repeated in a whisper as the situation hit her. "Sally…"

"Now you're turning all maudlin on me. You aren't going to cry, are you?"

Rose glared at her companion. "Look, I got the poor girl killed because I thought I'd take her on a one-off thank you trip to see Shakespeare as thanks for somehow helping me get unstuck from being in 1969, and I would very much like it if I didn't get taunted over how I completely, utterly and ridiculously failed her."

Missy blinked twice. "Sheesh, time-girl, you need to grow a thicker skin. It's probably not the first sentient who got killed during your travels because you're not a proper Time Lady and it's not the last one either."

"Sorry for having a conscience" Rose replied through gritted teeth, and that earned her a mirthless smile.

"Time will get you rid of that" Missy replied matter-of-factly. "Really, there's only going to be three alternatives if you'll insist on caring about all the dead you'll leave in your wake, wolf-girl – running away, going insane or a having a lobotomy."

"Pass on all three" Rose groused, and Missy shook her head, but the young woman soldiered on. "Do you have any place that's not watched and outside of the rain?"

"Got one in the Powell Estate, which, coincidentally, happens to be right next to where we are" Missy drawled, before she frowned at Rose. "What is it? _Another_ trip down memory lane?"

"I was born here, and so was my mother" Rose said quietly.

"Well, if she was already born I doubt she's going to recognize you" Missy said impatiently. "Now come on, I've had enough of standing around in the rain."

Rose's unease did not die down as the pair made their way through Peckham. It was like she was going to visit her grandfather's – exact same streets, except of course the high-rise buildings were a lot newer and the population was different, dressed differently, the cars much older and less numerous, and the cell phones entirely absent.

And her Granddad Prentice was younger by thirty years than he'd been when Rose last saw him.

"I see from the lack of hurry coming down the stairs that little Jacqueline isn't giving you as much hell as yesterday" Missy said in lieu of greetings as they met between the second and third storey. The man returned a painfully familiar tight smile.

"She's sleeping. I left her with Jessica Wood, got to nip down to the pharmacy."

"I bet you'll be glad to be completely clear of that growing teeth business" Missy replied casually. "Did you meet my girlfriend?" she added, dragging the soaked and stunned Rose by her shoulder. "Doesn't look like much now that she's doing her best expression of a drowned kitten, but I assure you she's quite something when she gets going."

Rose coughed and spluttered at the implications. "What- what- what the- I'm not-"

The blond man laughed nervously. "Don't worry, Miss, Missy Franklin has that kind of effect with everyone." Then, somewhat interested. "You wouldn't happen to be her daughter, would you?"

"Haven't adopted her yet" Missy said without missing a beat. "I'm working on it, but she's not really seeing the benefits."

"I have a mother" Rose said in a strangled voice.

"One who doesn't mind a rather provocative sense of fashion, I can see" her grandfather said, eyeing the young woman up – and Rose noticed, and she hid her head in her hands.

"It's okay, it's okay, I'm going to wake up…"

"Oi, can't fault a man for looking if you're dressed that way" the man protested. "And I'm not going to do anything about it, don't worry" he added dourly.

Something clicked in Rose's mind, and her eyes went down. "I'm so sorry. You must be missing her."

"I do- wait, how do you know I've lost my wife?"

"You just told her" Missy interjected. "And she's a perceptive young woman, much cleverer than most give her credit for." Then, thoughtfully: "Not too shabby a saleswoman either."

"And obviously in need of warming up, while I still need to nip down to the pharmacy" Rose's grandfather said, shutting down the conversation. He held out his hand to the young woman, who took it gingerly. "Daniel Prentice, how do you do?"

"Rose Tyler. How do you do?"

"Better for asking." Rose's grandfather looked at Missy. "Now get the girl inside before she catches her death."

"That happens in a couple of episodes" Missy replied flippantly as the man went past the pair of women. Rose stared at her companion, who shrugged in reply. "What, don't you think you'd make a great TV heroine?"

Rose was pretty certain she'd have a monster headache before the day was over. At least the cause would be someone she could trust to help her get out of 1969.

* * *

The folder Sally Sparrow had given to Rose was a treasure trove of information. It held a retelling of the entire incident which had happened to Sally and a sibling pair of friends, the Nightingales, as well as to a detective named Billy Shipton. It held letters, photographs, and the entire script of a conversation between Rose and Sally, held thirty-eight years apart. And the whole thing revolved around the abandoned building where Rose had been hiding, mulling her thoughts over the death of Sally and how she would find a family to return her body to, and apparently, the explanation of why she was in 1969 appeared on a couple of photographs.

"Fascinating race, the Weeping Angels" Missy said from behind Rose's shoulder. "The only murdering psychopaths in the universe who can kill you nicely. No hurt, no fuss, just an instant of disorientation after they zapped you into the past to live the rest of your days while they feed on the potential energy of the life you haven't lived. Of course they probably got a little more than they bargained for, they must be very strong now after the feast you've just offered them."

"Why?"

"Time traveller? Plus, they've got a TARDIS to keep feeding now. Throw in a key to open it and you've got a nice little chance at destroying the whole of your root species before they ever get a chance at spreading their wings in space, but who's counting? Time can be rewritten for a reason."

"I didn't leave a TARDIS key dangling behind, and I'm kind-of attached to this planet" Rose said tartly.

Missy pouted. "Pity. You'll kind-of want to do something about those Angels, then, give them enough time to have people staring at them in the eyes and 2012 Earth is going to feel very empty and radioactive wasteland-ish. On the plus side, big population surge in the late sixties. Maybe we've found the explanation for this planet's demographic explosion!"

Rose flashed her companion a look of disbelief. "You're having fun."

Missy grinned back. "Of course I am. I'm watching an ex-human girl with barely an education to speak of mucking about with the weight of her entire root species on her shoulders. It's entertaining."

Rose groaned. "Can I at least ask you to teach me how to build up that time-detector thing I apparently use to find Billy Shipton when he appears?"

"That's DI Shipton for you, knight girl. And maybe. I might be looking for something to do one day or another."

Rose groaned again. Spending three months in Missy's company was going to feel very, _very_ long.

* * *

Sally Sparrow didn't believe in "Danger, keep out" signs. To be precise, Sally Sparrow didn't believe in "Danger, keep out" signs where they were warning people off old and dilapidated houses. The small blonde was very lightly built and knew her way through precarious structures, and thought little of breaking down the odd palisade barring access to old houses full of little stories to discover and capture in picture. Every now and then, she dragged a friend of hers to a house she particularly liked, but tonight, Sally was on her own, making her way into the old manse of Wester Drumlins, bypassing the staircases leading upstairs and down to what was likely a cellar in favour of exploring a vast living room which opened on a patio and, in all likelihood, what must have once been a beautiful garden with fruit trees and a pristine marble statue of an angel covering its face with its hands adorning it; but the garden had long-since been overtaken by wild overgrowth, and even the statue bore evidence of nature's attempts at taking over what has been left abandoned by the manse's last tenants.

Not that Sally minded. The wild state of the garden and the wear and tear suffered by the old house contributed to an atmosphere of beautiful sadness, one pleasurable to an erstwhile antiquarian currently between jobs, and farther apart from her passion for old objects than she liked (or perhaps she could try and start her own business?)

The young woman's interest in old things wasn't in their age, however; it was in how their appearance, their texture, their smells spoke of their pasts and of the lives of those who once owned them, and Wester Drumlins' living room seemed to harbour one odd trace of someone's past, as evidenced by the word "Beware" painted in elegant lettering, which poked from under a faded and peeling wallpaper.

Sally quickly made up her mind and went to pull at the wallpaper, curious about whether a longer message was hidden underneath – and one was. "Beware the Weeping Angel". Somewhat surprised, the wispy woman turned around to look at the statue gleaming in the moonlight. But there didn't seem to be anything special to it, and Sally returned to peeling more wallpaper off, exposing…

… her own name, written in the same elegant letters, with an instruction: "Now duck, Sally Sparrow." The young woman was spooked, but she didn't comply; she tore even more wallpaper off the wall, exposing the next part of the message. "Seriously, save your questions for later and duck, NOW."

Sally obeyed almost instinctually – and in the nick of time, too, a ceramic pot flew right through the space where her head had been and went to shatter on the wall, spooking the young woman even more. The worst bit probably was turning back around, now very wary of the Weeping Angel, only to see it was in the exact same position – perhaps with a little less mould on it than before? But no, that must have been her spooked brain playing tricks on her; Sally turned back to the wall and tore the rest of the paper off, exposing the end of the message, which made little sense to her: "Told you. Find me. I'm so sorry. The Bad Wolf (1969)."

The young woman left Wester Drumlins in a hurry after reading that. She was still spooked by the time she reached the house of her friend, Kathy Nightingale, and let herself in. She passed by the bedroom of Kathy's brother Larry; the room was open and empty, showing several monitor screens all displaying the same young woman in black-and-white images. One of the images was actually running, with the woman apologetically saying an "I get that this situation's a bit unsettling" which pretty much summed up Sally's evening.

Little did Sally know that that night would also be Kathy Nightingale's last one in 2007.

* * *

Shortly into her stay in 1969, Rose decided that Daniel Prentice was going to be a problem. Not that her grandfather had made another inappropriate remark about her. No, the difficulty lay in how he regularly tried to get Rose to babysit her two-year-old mother while he absented himself. The entire notion had "big nasty world-ending paradox" painted all over it in huge red capital letters should Jackie remember enough to ever make the connection between her twenty year old daughter and the young woman from her childhood who looked exactly the same.

"Look on the brighter side, gloomy girl" Missy had replied once, when Rose had brought up that point. "Your lovely gramps didn't make the connection between thirteen and twenty-year old you. Or if he did, he didn't mess things up."

"I'm more worried about mum remembering _and_ not remembering me showing up during her childhood. You just can't have two sets of conflicting-" Rose's voice had broken down to a whisper- "memories…"

"And the newbie time traveller figures it out" Missy had drawled – and Rose had indeed figured out a couple of things, coming from her own experience messing with events surrounding her father's death. She knew her mother had only ever remembered the altered timeline, in which "a young woman" had shown up and been at her father's side as he died, while Rose herself, the time traveller, remembered both being told as a child of how he'd died alone _and_ being told as a child of how, well, she had been there for him.

She'd revisited that situation a few days later with Missy, who supplied a strangely Doctor-ish definition of time as "a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff" and an explanation of why that meant time held up when it was being rewritten unless you touched the "stitches" on the ball, or "fixed points". "You'll know when you are around one" Missy had supplied, "it's going to make your skin crawl so badly your instinct will be running the hell away from it."

That conversation had been cut short, as at that point, Rose had tried testing the device she'd built under Missy's direction to detect Billy Shipton's arrival in 1969, resulting in a foul odour coming from the fridge which Rose assessed to be coming from the eggs inside the fridge, which had boiled in less than two seconds flat. And then she'd had to go running after Missy, who'd gleefully run out to look for hens to test if the detector could blow them up. That chase ended up taking the better part of a day…

* * *

The second time Sally saw a recording of the strange woman, it sounded very much like half a conversation, and a very strange one at that. She'd just heard a completely out of place "thirty-eight", and by the time Sally had looked around and seen nobody was actually there, the woman was cringing on the screen and finally speaking again. "Well, usually, people don't understand how time works, it's not what they think it is."

"What does that even mean?" Sally breathed.

"Complicated" the woman spoke, and then she froze inside her frame. Sally turned to see the young man from two nights before – this time, he was wearing pants.

"Hi" Sally said, drawing the same in automatic response. Then the young man frowned.

"We've met before, haven't we?"

Sally smirked. "It will come to you."

The young man processed – and then crossed his hands in front of his groin. "Oh my God…"

"There it is."

"Sorry. Sorry again about the whole-"

Sally cut him off. "Message from your sister." And she proceeded to convey it, as best she could, wondering all the while whether Kathy's brother Larry would ever get to find out the truth of what had happened to his sister, let alone believe it if he did; she was dragging herself down when she was saved by a "Too complicated" randomly coming from the screen.

"Who is this woman?"

The young man's eyes lit up. "She's an Easter egg."

"Excuse me?"

"Like a DVD extra, yeah? You know how on DVDs they put extras on, documentaries and stuff? Well sometimes, they put on hidden ones, and they call them Easter eggs. You have to go looking for them. Follow a bunch of clues on the menu screen."

"Don't you feel a bit weird being passionate about a woman hidden on a DVD?" Sally asked, and Larry laughed.

"I'm a bit obsessed, yeah, but that's because she isn't just on one DVD" the young man replied with a grin. "She's actually on seventeen DVDs, all totally unrelated. Always hidden away, always a secret. Not even the publishers know how she got there. I've talked to the manufacturers – _they_ don't even know. She's like a ghost DVD extra, showing up where she's not supposed to be. But only on those seventeen."

Sally frowned a bit. "And what does she do?"

"Nothing. She just sits down and says random phrases, it's like we're hearing half a conversation. There's also a couple of sentences from someone in the background." Larry puffed up a bit. "Me and the guys are trying to work out the other half, and we've got some solid ideas."

"It's lucky there's the Internet, isn't it?" Sally said off-handedly, and Larry looked at her with surprise.

"How did you know?"

The young woman grinned. "Spooky, isn't it?"

"Laurence, need you!" called the voice of the young man's partner, who excused himself, leaving Sally alone in the back again. On a whim, she unpaused the recording again, and after a few seconds the Easter egg woman resumed talking.

"If you really must try and imagine a representation of time, forget about linear progression from cause to effect. From a non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like, well, a big ball of a wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff."

Sally scoffed. "At first you think you were hearing a philosopher, and then the sentence just runs away."

"It kinda got away from me, yeah" the woman said pensively, and her gaze wandered upward. Sally waited a bit, then eventually let out a "So?"

The woman looked back at the camera. "Sorry about that, yeah, got lost in my memories."

"It's almost like she can hear me" Sally mused.

"Well, I can hear you" the woman replied. This caught Sally completely off guard. She paused the recording, glaring at the screen.

"Okay, that's enough! I've had enough now, I've had a long day and I've had bloody enough!" She spotted the returning Larry. "Sorry. Bad day."

"Got you the list" the young man replied, holding out an A4 printed sheet.

"What?"

"The list, the seventeen DVDs. I thought you might be interested."

"Yeah." Sally took the list and stashed it distractedly, not really intent on looking at it, and she took off, pausing just long enough when she heard Larry's associate berate a character on his TV about going to the police.

It was a good idea. And it got her to give her phone number to a charming, off-duty Detective Inspector.

* * *

Billy Shipton ended up landing in the exact same street Rose had, and looked just as disoriented as Rose remembered having been. Luckily for the DI, Missy wasn't part of his welcoming committee.

"Are you alright?" Rose asked, and the policeman coughed.

"No. Where am I?"

"London, just out of Peckham."

The man shook his head energetically. "I don't understand. I was just looking at that statue of an angel that had somehow shown up in the station's garage, and the next thing I know I'm falling here."

"When you are here is also going to come as a bit of a surprise" Rose said, helping the man stand up. "And no, you didn't drink that much. It's the statue of an angel that did it – well, not quite a statue. Now, did you have any family in London in 1969?"

"Is that important?" Billy Shipton asked back, clearly puzzled, but Rose didn't look back at him and proceeded to lead him out of the street.

"Little bit important, whether you have family around in 1969, considering this _is_ 1969\. Last day of April, to be precise."

"What?"

"Not a bad year" Rose continued conversationally as she led the man on. "You've got the moon landing to look forward to. You know, actually, once we're done here, I might actually go and take a peek, seems like it should be a fascinating scene. Of course I'll have to check for TARDIS imprints all around, knowing the Doctor he'll have gone at least half a dozen times already, and I wouldn't put it past future me to indulge the same way."

"Are _you_ alright?" the DI asked, staring at Rose.

The young woman smiled. "Oh, yes, perfectly alright. And I know I'm sounding a bit crazy, but take a gander."

Billy did, and was very glad the young blonde was there to keep him steady when he felt his world collapse underneath his feet.

"That's just not possible!" he croaked.

"That's what I came to meet you for. Look, I've got a place at the Powell Estate – well, my friend's got a place, but she's out for a couple of weeks or so and she's left me keys. We'll talk there, alright?"

"Alright…"

The duo made their way through the streets and arrived at the apartment complex where Missy and Rose resided, to find Daniel Prentice knocking on the door, and turning with evident relief on his face when Rose hailed him.

"Oh, you're a lifesaver. Work just called, I need to go in now and I've got nobody to take care of Jacqueline – and I mean _nobody_ , I wouldn't have asked otherwise. Would you mind?"

"Is anything wrong?" Billy asked from Rose's side, noting how the blonde looked suddenly afraid.

"Kind-of" Rose breathed back.

"Look, I'm sorry I'm throwing a wrench your plans" her grandfather said drily, "but those activities can keep. And while you're at it, you can try and set things a bit better with my daughter, you're causing her a lot of grief by never looking at her."

The man made for his door without waiting for an answer, and Rose almost made to bolt – only to be stopped by Billy Shipton.

"Look, I don't know what's going on between the two of you or how you separated, but you're helping" he said in a tone that left no room for argument. "1969 isn't going anywhere."

"It might if things are pushed too far" Rose mumbled. "Part of what I need to talk to you about."

"Rose!" Daniel Prentice's voice called.

The young woman gulped. There was nothing for it. She took a deep breath, walked inside her grandfather's messy and painfully familiar flat, and for the first time since she'd arrived, she looked straight at her two year-old mother, who was looking back – and was visibly afraid of her daughter from the future. And that nearly broke Rose's heart.

The young woman found her resolve. She set her feelings aside, put her kindest face on and crouched to place herself on her mother's level. "Will you look at that beautiful girl" she cooed, confusing little Jackie. The little girl looked hesitantly at her father, who smiled at her, took her in his arms and went to the same leather-covered sofa Rose remembered from her own childhood, only much newer, of course. He seated little Jackie besides him and made an inviting gesture for Rose to get on the other side of the child; he nodded at Billy to take a seat opposite.

Rose went along, the whole scene feeling a bit unrealistic to her.

"Now give her a hug, and tell her you're sorry you didn't look at her before" her grandfather ordered in the voice that had always stopped her mother when the two had argued. Rose complied awkwardly… and felt the sting of a little slap on her cheek after they'd parted.

"Bad Wolf!" the little girl said sternly, and her father commented in a rather dark tone with a "she can't pronounce Rose properly, she first said 'Wose' and now she's saying 'Wolf' because she thinks you don't like her."

"I love her" Rose said, a grin forming on her face. "She slapped me."

"Bad Wose! Bad Wolf!"

"Now, listen here, young lady-" but the lecture went no further as Rose started to laugh heartily, before she swooped on for a hug and several pecks in little Jackie's hair.

"Oh, you have no idea how much I love you, you wonderful, wonderful girl" she said happily, and she got a little laugh in return.

"She still shouldn't have done that" her grandfather said with a scowl, and Rose protested.

"No, really, I deserved it, and I really don't mind."

"And I hardly think it proper to let her think it's alright to slap people when they've done something she doesn't like."

"Could serve her later in life" Rose said. "Shouldn't you be running?"

Her grandfather returned a tight smile. "I should. Think you can find your way around the kitchen? I'm likely to return late this night."

"I'll manage" Rose said with a goofy grin.

"Oh, and no shagging your boyfriend in my bed."

"Not her boyfriend" Billy said sharply. "She's just a friend giving me a roof for a few days."

Rose had to credit DI Billy Shipton, he was fast on his feet even when faced with a shocking situation.

* * *

Rose's grandfather didn't return in time for supper or to tuck his daughter into bed, and so the young woman took charge of it, a bit surprised at how quickly little Jackie had reversed course on her. She sang a few lullabies she remembered from her own childhood to help the little girl fall asleep, and went briefly to rap on the door of Missy's flat to tell Billy Shipton to come back so they could talk – the DI had needed the time to try and process what was happening to him and that he really was in 1969.

"So, what was that all about?" he asked quietly once the pair were seated in Rose's grandfather's living room. "He your ex-husband or something?"

"Oh no" Rose replied just as quietly. "Remember me asking whether you had family around? He's my grandfather. Jackie is my mother."

"You were sent back to 1969 too" Billy deduced, and Rose nodded.

"Same process, same culprit, that angel statue. They're called Weeping Angels – fascinating creatures, and the nicest of murderers. For all intents and present purposes you're dead the moment they touch you, but they just send you to live the rest of your days in the past."

The man grunted. "So I'm really stuck here."

"I'm afraid so" Rose said, chewing on her lip. "Normally I would have been to help you get back to your own time, but I can't. The Angels got my phone box."

"The phone box from Wester Drumlins!"

"Shh, you'll wake her."

"Sorry" Billy said sheepishly. "It's just, we've found that thing four months ago just sitting in front of the house when it hadn't been there before, so we brought it back to the station. Nobody's been able to open it."

"I should think not. Torchwood were still active when I got caught by one of the Angels, and it'd have been really bad news if they'd got their stupid mitts on a time machine."

"The phone box is a time machine" Billy echoed.

"If you can travel backwards in time, makes sense you can travel forward, doesn't it?"

"I suppose…" The man scratched his head. "So those angel things stole your time machine?"

"They did, and I kind-of need it back, and can't afford to wait until my mum grows old enough to remember me to get away from this here – which brings us back to you."

"Me?"

"You're the only person around I can ask who can deliver a message to Sally Sparrow" Rose elaborated, "you've even got her cell number. Hold onto it, it'll be useful someday, when you can finally deliver that message." And then her face grew sad. "And I'm really sorry, Billy Shipton. It's going to take you a while…"

* * *

It took Billy thirty-eight years, but he knew that when he saw Sally next, it hadn't even been an hour for the wispy blonde. Her face may or may not have been exactly as he remembered it, there was too much morphine in his system, alleviating the pain from his cancer, to really be certain of much. But there were a few things he remembered clearly, things he'd trained himself to remember no matter how bad his condition over nearly four decades, so he still would when it would matter. And a few details had helped fix that in his mind.

"It was raining when we met" his voice grated, tired and worn.

"It's the same rain" the woman said, a look of disbelief on her face. "Is that really you, Billy?"

He tilted his head towards the photographs on the bed-stand. There was one picture from his wedding there, in which he looked almost just like he had when Sally had found him – he even wore the leather jacket he'd had on him a lifetime or an hour ago, which had raised quite a few eyebrows, but it was his wife's mother, Katherine Wainwright, who had put her foot down and told everyone Billy would be wearing whatever he liked at his wedding. Billy had found out why a few days later; that conversation, too, was one he would never forget, meeting with someone else who'd been sent back in time (to 1920, she had told him), and the two had found some support with each other and eased off their burdens. They'd stayed great friends until Kathy had died. And Billy's own wife never truly knew who she had been named after…

"Her name was Sally too" Billy said, supplying the wispy blonde with the information he knew she wanted. That made the girl smile.

"Sally Shipton."

"Daughter of Katherine Costello Nightingale" Billy rasped, surprising the young woman.

"You knew Kathy."

"My mother-in-law. Sometimes we talked about the twenty-first century. She talked a lot about you."

"Why didn't you call me earlier?" Sally asked "You had my number all this time."

"I often thought of that since Sally died, but if I'd called and we'd met it would have torn a hole into the fabric of the universe and destroyed all life on Earth and in several galaxies. Also", and he managed a wink, "I lost my hair."

Sally was shaking her head with disbelief. "Torn a hole in the fabric of the universe and destroyed all life on Earth and in several galaxies… Who told you that?"

"There was a woman in 1969. She sent me with a message for you."

"What woman?"

"The Bad Wolf." Billy ignored the nonplussed look and forced himself to recall the exact words. "She said to tell you this: 'save your questions for later, be there, just remember to look at the list. I'm so sorry.' "

"She also said that last bit in the writing on the wall" Sally mused.

"Clever woman, and kind, too. She helped me set up in 1969, get ID, get a new life. I couldn't go back to the Police; I went into publishing. Then, video publishing. Then, DVDs."

"You put the Easter egg in" Sally deduced.

Billy smiled. "She gave me some video recordings of hers and told me where to put them, and gave me guidelines for how they'd have to be programmed. Did you look at that list? There's seventeen DVDs, and they have just one thing in common."

"Larry said they didn't."

"They do, gorgeous girl: they have you in common."

Sally stared at the old man. "The Easter eggs are on all seventeen DVDs I own and no other?"

"They are."

"How does that even work? How could that Bad Wolf woman even know I had a list or I own those DVDs?"

"She also said you'd probably not listen to the first bit of the message."

"Yes, she said to save the questions for later and be there, I heard" Sally snapped – and then turned mortified. "I'm sorry" she said in a small voice. "You're dying and I'm forcing you to talk to me about my own problems."

Billy returned a smile. "I don't mind. I've had that one last talk with you to look forwards to."

"I'm going to come back", Sally protested, but the old man shook his head.

"No, gorgeous girl, you can't. There's only this moment. The Bad Wolf told me, all those years ago, that we'd only meet again this one time, on the evening I die."

"Billy…" Sally was on the verge of tears as she took his hands in hers. "I'll stay" she added, her voice thick. "I'm going to stay with you, okay?"

The old man gave her a tired smile. "Going out with a hot girl at my bedside, it's not so bad", and Sally had a watery chuckle. "I have 'till the rain stops."

And that was all Billy had. Sally hadn't forced him to talk more about Wester Drumlins, she could see how much effort it cost the old man to talk. She did listen to, and laughed at the retelling of a few exchanges between Billy and Kathy.

The old man passed with very little additional suffering; there was just one surprised look, and then the light in his eyes had dimmed, and his breathing had laboured for a few seconds; and it had stopped. Billy had passed away after, Sally realized, spending the last thirty-eight years of his life working so he could get a message to her, and get the Easter eggs on seventeen DVDs so she could see an entire video of a conversation – with who? With her?

At any rate, Sally was very determined not to let the matter rest, and that very same night, she'd gotten Larry Nightingale to bring a portable DVD player and a montage of all the Easter eggs so that they'd watch them at Wester Drumlins, where all of this had started the night before. The young man took a bit of convincing, but before long he had set his material up in the living room, and the blonde woman Sally had gotten used to seeing in those Easter eggs came in view and got seated, chewing a little on her lip.

"There she is" Larry said.

The woman on the screen cleared her throat. "Hello, I'm the Bad Wolf" she said quietly, and Sally breathed the name as the woman said it, earning herself a surprised look.

"How did you know?" Larry asked. "She only says it if you've got the complete thing. One of the cleverest hacks I've ever seen, she only says that when you compile the seventeen sequences in the right order and with the exact number of frames of each egg on their DVDs" Larry supplied with a grin.

"She doesn't look like much of a wolf to me" Sally mused.

"Lack of yellow eyes and big teeth could be getting you confused" the woman on the screen said tartly, and Sally's eyes opened wide.

"Okay, that was scary."

"No, scary is when you find out I'm not kidding about the eyes" the woman- replied?

Larry chuckled. "It seems a bit spooky right now, but it's really nothing, just a coincidence. She always says that."

"Yes, I do" the woman groused.

"And that" Larry added.

"Yeah. And this" came the 'reply'.

Sally had knelt in front of the portable DVD player Larry had brought, bemused. "She can hear us! Oh my God, she can really hear us!"

"Of course she can't hear us" Larry said, amused. "Look" he added, fetching something else from his bag – a green folder holding a few printed sheets – and bringing it back to Sally. "I've got a transcript. See?" He flipped through the pages. "Everything she says. 'Scary is when you find out I'm not kidding about the eyes.' 'Yes, I do.' 'Yep. And this.' Next is-"

"Are you gonna read out the whole thing?" the woman said in perfect sync with Larry – it was his turn to be taken aback.

"Sorry" the young man mumbled.

"No pressure, I get that this situation's a bit unsettling" the woman said with a small smile.

Sally was exhilarated now. "This is unbelievable. Who are you?" she asked the woman on the screen.

"The Bad Wolf?"

Sally rolled her eyes. "Yeah, that's very helpful."

"I'm a time traveller" the Bad Wolf supplied. Then she frowned. "Or, I was. I'm stuck in 1969, and if I stay stuck I'm going to go crazy before 1970" she added, rolling her eyes as another woman drawled a "You're already off your hinges, stranded girl" in the background.

"That's the only other person who speaks in the whole thing, and they never show up on screen" Larry commented. "Nobody ever found out who that might be."

"Trust me, you're better off not knowing" the woman on screen said drily.

"There's a theory on the web about the voice really being a Rose Tyler, a criminal who killed someone in 1969 in an incident that got hushed in a hurry" Larry went on, and the woman on screen rolled her eyes.

"That's a genius theory" the woman said sarcastically, and Sally looked up at Larry, smiling widely.

"She's replying to you. I don't think she agrees with your idea."

"Quite possibly" the woman said tartly.

"This is genius!" Sally said, and she returned her attention to the screen. "You are really in 1969!"

"I'm afraid so" the woman replied, chewing on her lip. "It's a little inconvenient."

"Why is it?" Sally asked, to be met by a negative headshake. The girl changed subjects. "How are you replying to me? You can't know what I'm going to say forty years before I say it!"

"Thirty-eight" the woman corrected automatically.

"I'm getting this down, I'm writing in your bits" Larry said in the background, unclasping a pen from the folder and beginning to write. Sally wasn't paying attention.

"How are you talking to me?" she asked. "How is this possible? Tell me?" ("Not so fast!" said Larry).

The woman cringed. "Well, usually, people don't understand how time works, it's not what they think it is."

"Then what is it?"

"Complicated" the woman replied unhelpfully.

"Tell me" Sally encouraged.

"Too complicated. If you really must try and imagine a representation of time, forget about linear progression from cause to effect. From a non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like, well, a big ball of a wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff."

"Yeah, I've seen this bit before" Sally said with a small smile. "You said that sentence got away from you."

"It kinda got away from me, yeah" the woman said pensively, and her gaze wandered upward.

"Now you're going to be silent for a moment, and then you're going to apologize because you got lost in your memories."

The woman looked back at the camera. "Sorry about that, yeah, got lost in my memories."

"It's really like she can hear me" Sally said bemusedly for Larry.

"Well, I can hear you" the woman replied, and Sally shook her head.

"This is impossible!"

"No, it's brilliant" Larry said, face covered in an ear-splitting grin.

"Trust me, it's not that extraordinary a feat knowing what an average human male like you is going to say" the woman said tartly.

"That bit has a lot of people think she's a bit of a misanthropist, that Bad Wolf girl" Larry remarked. "Almost like she weren't human."

"We aren't" the voice in the background drawled, and Larry gulped.

"Okay, never thought _I'd_ get spooked by that thing, I know the whole transcript by heart."

"I know, it's a little weird to hear the same replies you've seen recorded before and it suddenly sounds like a conversation" Sally commented, and she returned her focus to the screen. "How do you manage, human or not?"

"Look to your left" the woman replied with a scowl.

"That's not a political statement, is it?" Larry said quietly. "She means me."

"I do mean you" came the confirmation.

"What are you doing?" Sally said, finally noticing Larry sitting cross-legged on the floor, pen scribbling on paper.

"I'm writing in our bits" the young man explained, jotting down signs as he spoke. "That way I've got a complete transcript of the whole conversation."

"I've got a copy of the finished transcript" the woman said, waving a few sheets on camera. "Memorized what's on it before recording this."

"How can you have a copy of the finished transcript?" Sally asked, returning to sit in front of the player. "It's still being written."

The woman gave her a flat look. "I told you, I'm a time traveller. I got it in your future."

Sally smiled bemusedly. "Okay, let me get my head around this. You're reciting lines you've learned in a transcript of a conversation you're still having."

The woman rolled her eyes. "Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, and I'm cheating a bit, but that's more weird stuff I can't really explain, so let's not waste time on it."

Sally sighed. "Alright, then, nevermind that."

"Yeah, not important" the woman agreed. "What matters is, I can talk to you, and it's good for the both of us because we've got big problems now. They have taken the blue box, haven't they? The Angels have the phone box."

"The Angels have the phone box, that's my favourite line" Larry said in the background. "I've put it on a T-shirt, actually sells nicely."

That didn't quite catch Sally's attention. She was a lot less exhilarated than moments before. "What do you mean by Angels?" she asked. "Do you mean those statue things?"

"They're not statues" the woman said very seriously. "They're creatures from another world."

"They seem to be moving, but they're definitely statues" Sally retorted, earning herself another negative headshake.

"Only when you see them" the woman said. "In a way they're some of the saddest creatures in the universe, and they're almost as old as it. That's because they have one of the most perfect defence systems ever evolved by nature – they are quantum-locked, they only exist when they aren't being observed."

"That's not on the transcript" Larry said uncertainly, "we're supposed to have hit the end. And it sounds a bit far-fetched" Larry said uncertainly.

"Take a peek at the statue in the garden and note the hands over its eyes" the woman prompted, and the pair did so. "They're hiding their own eyes because they can't see one another; the moment any living creature sees them they're turned into rock. They've got no choice, it's a fact of their biology – they literally turn to stone, hard enough to resist the pressures from the gravity of a supermassive black hole. You can't kill them when they're stone – and one of you needs to keep an eye on the statue in the garden, because it won't be able to kill you while it's a statue. Just make sure you never, and I mean, _never_ , look into their eyes. You are dead if you do."

Sally slowly looked up, and felt a shiver run down her spine – the statue had moved closer to the patio where the pair were watching the video, on which the woman talked on.

"For a moment you've looked away. Don't do that again. Don't lose them from your sight, because the moment you look away – the moment you _blink_ … Suddenly, it can kill you, because nobody's watching."

"Don't take your eyes off that" Sally said tensely, and Larry followed her eyes, blanching as he took in the statue, which was definitely not in the same position he remembered vaguely spotting it in before.

"Remember that, Sally Sparrow" the woman continued, "the Angels' greatest asset is their greatest curse. They can't look at each other. They can't even look at themselves in a mirror." The voice took a tinge of sadness. "Loneliest creatures in the universe. And I'm sorry. I'm very, very sorry, so very, very sorry."

Sally's eyes flicked back to the screen, and the emotion was visible on the woman's face. "Sorry for what?" the girl inquired.

"I've got to ask you to do what needs to be done, now" the woman said quietly.

"What am I supposed to do?" Sally asked.

"The blue police telephone box you've seen, it's in their basement. It's a time machine, saturated with energies the Angels will seek to consume."

"Okay, it's been two minutes I've never seen before and I've hunted those Easter eggs for ten years" Larry said worriedly. "How did all that new stuff get in there?"

"Full DVD assembled like you did checks for a portable DVD player with this exact processor serial and tells the player to decrypt the hidden part of the message embedded under the regular Easter eggs, but that doesn't matter" the woman said impatiently. "What matters is the Angels. They can't get inside the phone box as they are now, and if they aren't stopped they'll try and grow strong enough to force their way through, and to do that they'll try and attack and kill every human being that doesn't look at them – and they'll spread faster and faster as soon as they come within reach of live cameras. Anything that looks into their eyes, even if it's on a photo or on a movie clip, they become one of the Angels. They'll wipe out the whole country and turn it into a nuclear wasteland if they think they can win by doing that. You've got to take away their motivation – you've got to send my time machine back to me."

"How?" Sally asked tensely.

"Use the DVD inside that player, the TARDIS – that's her name – will recognize it and know where she needs to go. She'll offer you refuge if you touch the disk to the wooden door. And the additions you made to the transcript have been over for a while, which probably means there's already one in front of you. And I'm afraid the others must be coming for you."

"I saw three more of the statues on the upper floor" Sally supplied in a shaking voice.

"Now listen, the pair of you – your lives, and a lot of other lives, depend on this. Never take your eyes off them, and _don't_ blink. Don't even blink. Every time they'll move they'll accelerate and go faster and faster, until they're so fast you wouldn't believe how fast, and if they catch you, you're dead. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and _don't. Blink._ "

The woman was shedding a tear, and wiped it off distractedly. "Good luck, Sally Sparrow." And the image vanished, and the disc auto-ejected.

"No!" Sally protested. "Don't go!"

"We need to take the disk!" Larry said frantically, making for the player – and Sally realized what was going on.

"You're not looking at the statue…" she breathed.

"Neither are you" Larry mumbled, disc in hand.

The pair slowly turned their heads around… and looked up at the Angel, now inside the old living room and less than two metres away from them, hands extended into clawed talons and its wide-open mouth revealing cruel fangs.

The twenty-four hours before had not been pleasant by any measure; the following ten minutes were the most harrowing of Sally Sparrow's short life.

* * *

In the end, Rose had spent longer in 1969 than she absolutely had to – she had stayed until late July, nearly three months after the TARDIS had reached out to Rose joyfully from where she had materialized, three streets further. The intervening months had been spent waiting for Missy to show up – the enigmatic woman had vanished completely, not just gone for a couple of weeks as she'd initially told Rose, without leaving so much as a trace of her existence. So much for giving her a lift to 2008...

The wait, at least, had given Rose a pretext to spend a little more time helping her grandfather with her mother, as weird as it really was if she thought about it. In the end, she'd saved her first live recollection of the moon landing for a night with her mother and grandmother, watching the ghostly-quality images and listening live to Neil Armstrong's famous words about a giant leap for mankind, seated with an exhilarated Daniel Prentice and a sleepy, but curious Jacqueline Prentice, whom Rose had insisted to wake up for the occasion.

Later that night, or rather very early in the morning, Rose had quietly explained to her grandfather that she was moving away and this was likely the last time she was seeing them – technically true, and heart-breaking either way. Her grandfather hadn't tried to get her to stay; he misinterpreted Rose's reasons, obviously, and the young woman let him – she didn't really have another option. She couldn't tell him that he'd died when she was thirteen, and her mother was lost to another universe and she might not ever see her again.

She had, however, stopped being scared about risking to cause a paradox if she stayed close to the 1969 versions of her grandfather and mother. One evening, after she'd sung little Jackie to sleep, Rose had remembered an argument she really hadn't been supposed to be listening to between her mother and grandfather, when Rose was twelve. Elderly Daniel Prentice had reproached Jackie her inability to settle for a stable relationship, and in return Jackie had accused him of blowing things off with the one nice girl he'd hung out with when she was growing up, the one who'd woken her up for the Moon landing and sang her lullabies to put her to sleep. Her mother had bitterly ranted at how maybe, just maybe, had her father made an effort and kept the right girl, Jackie herself would have grown up benefiting from a stable relationship.

When she'd realized she knew who her mother had been talking about, it had taken Rose all of her best efforts to avoid laughing so loudly she'd wake up little Jackie – the notion of her mother regretting not having been raised by her own daughter was just too much.

Someday, when she or the Doctor found a way across the Void, Rose would have to tell him about the whole situation - and hopefully her mother would be still alive to listen to that story, just for the sake of seeing their faces. Although, in the Doctor's case, what Rose was really looking forward to was telling him she'd taken the first ever patented Jackie Tyler slap…

* * *

 **A/N:** I just couldn't resist the temptation… x)

Next is Utopia, and we know what that means…

 **ALotOfNerdyThings** , I'm afraid we're done with Missy for now, but she will be back. Poor Sally won't :(…

 **Guest** , I appreciate the critic, and corrected the oversight – it was Tish who died, Martha is still alive.

 **somethingrandom101** , yeah… Sally is one of the unfortunates used to point out Rose isn't quite as good as the Doctor "just because". I'm surprised to realize I'm a bit sad at the notion that's it for writing her in this story, she was a pleasure to write. Something to keep in mind for another occasion…

 **Bad Wolf Jen** , thanks as always for the kind words. The changes, they keep coming! ^^ We're returning within the frame of Season 3, though – now comes Utopia, and I'm not sure there's three episodes' worth of original material "left" this "season". I'll have to decide about filling out a few blanks once I'm done with the "season", if it's really easier on the reader, but I dislike just copying exactly whole scenes from an episode without or with very little changes.

 **bexandcall** , you are served! ;) And yes, this was really intended to be Rose's story. I'm afraid the next original will have to wait, however. It should be the second story in "Season 4".

Thanks everyone for reading, replying, following and favouriting. Also, since I'm wrapping this season up, there's a question about either staying within this story for the new season, or starting a new one after certain things happen involving a Master. I'm interested in which you think would work better.


	11. X - Utopia

**A/N:** I really need to start buying shares in the BBC if I ever wish to own even a shred of this.

* * *

 **X.** **Utopia**

* * *

Rose hadn't been able bring herself to find members of Sally Sparrow's family. What could she have told them, that their relative had been killed by witches in 1599 and she was really sorry, but it could have been worse, two thirds of the universe could have been destroyed if it weren't for the antiquarian? And it wasn't like telling her relatives that Sally had been a hero could come without an impossible number of questions.

No, only one person who Sally had known would reasonably believe what had happened to her, and it was also a person who wished to sell Rose out to UNIT. She couldn't bring Larry Nightingale the poor girl's corpse. He'd want to take its price out of Rose's hide – doubly so, as clearly, the young man had been taken with the wispy blonde.

Rose had settled for dropping a letter to the young man, explaining to him briefly what had happened and to report Sally as having disappeared. It wasn't like people would still remember her by the time the young woman's grave would be there to be found. The time traveller had brought the body to year five billion, after the sun had expanded, to lay a resting place for Sally on the planetoid Charon. She'd chosen the site because of the reference to the Ferryman of the Dead, which Rose had unwittingly been in Sally's case, and because it was highly doubtful the gravesite would ever be disturbed, with the Sol system having been abandoned and it been set on the road for a quiet extinction, what with the Sun being too small to go supernova. And, Rose had to admit to herself, because she probably wouldn't be alone for very long…

Once she'd laid Sally to rest, Rose returned to her regular time period – more out of convenience than of anything special, and without really any intent to visit anyone on Earth before she resumed her journeys, probably to the Library to try and find more material to learn. It was the first time Rose was bringing the TARDIS for a refill all by herself; not that it was a complicated operation, as it consisted in parking for a few minutes over the rift there and letting the time ship do her thing. Rose spent the time compiling a list of subjects she wanted to learn about next.

She was taken completely by surprise when she felt the old girl panic wildly and launch herself into action without any prompting on Rose's part, and understood a little better the moment she paid attention to her own senses, and was seized by the urgent need to flee as fast as possible and as far away as possible from whatever completely _unnatural_ thing that had somehow latched onto the TARDIS.

The time ship lurched violently and launched herself into time and space, far, far, very far, farther than she had ever gone before, until the old girl shuddered to a halt and Rose took a glimpse at the displays, to find out she had landed in…

"Year one hundred trillion" she breathed.

Not that going that far meant the young woman and her time ship had escaped whatever had prompted their traveling in the first place. Rose could still distinctly feel the completely unnatural presence outside the TARDIS, and try as she might, the young woman just couldn't get the old girl to turn her instruments in the direction of whatever was outside. Which left Rose with exactly one solution to her current situation: go out herself.

There was absolutely nothing in the sky outside the TARDIS nor anything looking alive in the barren wasteland; not that it registered for Rose, who gingerly peeked from behind one of the ship's corners… To let out a cry of despair.

"Jack!"

And Jack Harkness it was, clad in streetwear and a familiar-looking coat, and wearing a ridiculously large backpack. He also looked dead, and Rose fought against her body's instincts to run away from her friend and forced herself to check him for any sign of life.

She found none.

She looked at the empty sky, tearing up. "Oh no, no, no, no. Not Jack. That's not fair. He can't be dead, that's not fair!"

"HURRR!"

Jack's sudden movement took Rose completely by surprise, and before she knew it she'd put three good paces between the two of them.

"WHAT?"

"Rosie!"

Jack leapt up to his feet, but once again, Rose instinctually stepped back from him, and the ex-Time Agent only embraced very thin air, while the young woman stumbled and fell painfully on her backside.

"Ouch – I'm sorry, Jack, could you just, well, not surprise me or something?" The young woman cringed, and went on babbling. "I don't know what happened to you, but you feel – _wrong_ , somehow, and I don't want to run away from you, I'm really glad to see you, I'm so happy you're alive, I thought you were dead, not that-"

"Hold on a sec'" Jack cut her off, grimacing. "In fact, let's just get the Doc', he can probably explain what's happening to you, which I can't, and he's got an explanation to give me too."

Rose looked down at her lap. "He's gone" she said in a small voice. "I've been on my own for nearly three years, now."

"So he's left you behind too" Jack said darkly, at which Rose suddenly looked back up at him.

"NO!" She cringed again. "I'm sorry. No, he didn't leave me behind."

"That makes one of us" Jack groused. He tentatively approached and extended a hand to help Rose back up; the young woman took it gingerly, her grip so tense she almost crushed his fingers as he pulled her up.

"Something's happened to you" Jack stated matter-of-factly, and Rose had a little smile.

"Something's happened to _you_."

"I've got no idea what" Jack admitted, his expression turning sour. "One moment I'm getting killed by a Dalek in year two hundred one hundred, the next moment I wake up like it had only knocked me out and I take off at a run to try and re-join with the two of you, only it's too late, I arrive just in time to see the TARDIS finish dematerializing."

"Oh God!" Rose stared at Jack. "He left you behind?"

"Yeah, lucky for me I had this old thing with me" Jack continued, pulling a sleeve of his coat to show a device on his wrist looking a bit like an oversized, overly technical watch. "Vortex manipulator" Jack supplied, "from back when I was a Time Agent. Got me out of Satellite Five, only the blasted thing malfunctioned, sent me all the way back to 1869 and shorted out. It's leaking, for lack of a better word."

"The Doctor said you were helping restore the Earth" Rose said, turning her eyes away in discomfort.

Jack snorted. "You could say that. Anyway, I'm not the only one who had something happen to them. What's up with the eyes?"

Rose cringed again. "Is 'Bad Wolf' an acceptable answer?"

Jack scowled. "That name again. Is it still following you?"

Rose couldn't help a little smirk. "Follows me everywhere I go."

"Great."

"It's me" Rose said, and Jack stared at her. "Bad Wolf is me. As it turns out, the Doctor did try to leave me behind on Satellite Five – sent me back to my own time and tried to lock down the TARDIS. Only I refused to just let him die, so I did something incredibly stupid. I looked into the Heart of the TARDIS."

Jack gave her an appalled look. "Are you insane? You saw what that thing did to that Slitheen Margaret!"

"Well, I didn't have too many options" Rose said ruefully. "It worked, too, just didn't know exactly what it would entail at the time."

"What happened to you?"

Rose looked sideways. "Can you save that question for later? I'd like to look around before we get any nasty surprises."

"Good idea" Jack said with a nod. "That thing over there looks like a big hive, for starters, and there's no telling if it's empty from such a distance."

"Looks empty-ish" Rose replied. "No disturbances or trails, and going by the heterogeneity of the openings between ground-accessible and not this isn't a city for flight-able inhabitants. Doubt there's more than a small number of inhabitants in there, if any."

"There's tracks below" Jack noted. "City might be abandoned, the planet isn't. Maybe it's just gone too cold for whichever species lived in that city."

"We've got an atmospheric shell, at least" Rose commented, taking out her sonic screwdriver, which earned her a surprised glance.

"You've got one of these, now?"

"Gift from the TARDIS" Rose explained. "Comes in really handy, but some of the functions… Well, let's just say the Doctor must have been _really_ bored." She forced herself to look at Jack again. "Talking about things to know before all goes South, what happened earlier… You weren't really dead, were you?"

"Oh, I was" Jack replied, grimacing. "Don't ask me how that works, it just does. One moment I'm as dead as they come, whether I got shot, stabbed, impaled, you name it, and the next minute I'm good as new. Think that's got anything to do with why you're having to force yourself to even look at me right now?"

"It might" Rose replied, focusing again on her sonic. "Atmosphere's thinner than I'd like, but as long as we don't overdo it we won't drop from oxygen deprivation." She pocketed the sonic – and did a double-take. "Of course, she said I'd know when I'd be in the presence of one!"

"Who said what?" Jack asked, nonplussed.

"Oh, I've got to introduce you to her" Rose said enthusiastically, forgetting her discomfort for an instant. "There's this woman, well a female alien, really, her name's Missy; she's brilliant, and even a little crazier than the Doctor. Oh, and there's River Song, too, if we ever stumble on her, you're going to get along with her famously" Rose added, grinning.

"Okay, that's the who" Jack said, a little lost. "What's the what?"

"You're a fixed point" Rose said matter-of-factly.

"Fixed what?"

"A fixed point, a fact of the Universe no force in all of time and space can alter. That's why you can't die; you'd no longer be a fact."

"Wonderful" Jack said glumly. "Might come in handy in a minute, too."

"What?"

"Look over there" Jack said, gesturing (Rose winced) to show something far to their right, on the lower level. "That look like a manhunt to you?"

"It doesn't just look" Rose said tensely. And then she took off, running in the direction of the man pursued below them.

Jack shook his head and grinned. "That hasn't changed."

He ran after Rose, and overtook the young woman just in time to grab hold of the fleeing man. "It's okay, I've got you!" Jack said as reassuringly as he could, but the man only tried to shake himself free.

"We've got to run! They're coming!"

Jack pushed the man towards Rose and drew a gun, which he pointed towards the pack of tattooed humanoid savages who were fast-approaching and yelling.

"Don't shoot them, Jack!" Rose shouted at him, and the Time Agent hesitated, pointed his weapon up and fired a warning shot; the mob stopped dead in their tracks.

"That's not going to stop them forever, Rosie."

"I know that" Rose replied tartly, and she looked at the fugitive. "Apart from hungry, what are they?"

"No time!" the man replied, terrified. "There's more of them, we've got to keep going!"

"I've got my ship nearby, they won't be able to reach us there" Rose said kindly – and then she scowled as she spotted another pack of tribesmen up the cliff they'd just come from. "Or not; you've got some place to hide nearby?"

"We're close to the silo!" the man replied. "If we get to the silo, we're safe!"

"Silo it is" Rose said. "Lead the way."

"Since when are you wearing the pants in our relationship, Rosie?" Jack called out at her.

"You've got a better option?" she called back.

"I have several other options, but they leave us quite dead" Jack fired back.

"Then run!"

They ran, the mobs of tribesmen running and howling after them like so many feral hounds. They didn't have to go far; within minutes, the trio found themselves arriving at a fenced compound where they were halted by guardsmen.

"It's the Futurekind, open the gates!" the fugitive shouted.

"Show me your teeth!" the guards shouted back, and the man thrust his face on the fence. "Show me your teeth! Show me your teeth!" the guards shouted again at Rose and Jack.

"Jack, show them your teeth!" Rose echoed, and she complied, using her fingers to pull her lips back and show as much of her teeth as she could. Jack must have done something similar, for the next thing Rose knew a fenced door opened just long enough to pull the trio inside – just in time, too, the gate hadn't clamped shut for ten seconds that the feral tribe crashed into it, held back by the solid metal links.

"What's wrong?" Rose asked before anybody could stop her. "Why were you chasing this man?"

She was rewarded with horrible grins from mouths full of pointed and jagged teeth. "Humans" one of them said hoarsely. "Humani. Make feast!"

"Of course it would have been too much to ask for one quiet trip before returning to the running" Rose groused, panting.

"Wasn't the running half the fun?" Jack teased, trying to give Rose a one-armed hug, only for the young woman to nearly crash into one of the Futurekind's teeth trying to avoid him – one of the guards barely managed to catch her and hold her back.

"Hey!" Then Rose blushed crimson when she realized what had happened. "Sorry."

"Bad breakup is no reason to get yourself infected" the guard lectured, and Rose scowled at him.

"I didn't do that on purpose."

"Come back, pink girl" one of the Futurekind taunted, licking its teeth. "Kind hungry."

"Go to your room!" Rose shouted back at him, and Jack barked a laugh.

"You're not hoping that will work this time, are you?"

"Too much purple in the leather" Rose replied offhandedly. And then she grinned. "Oh, right, you wouldn't know, he's not wearing the leather jacket anymore!"

"Finally wore it out?"

Rose laughed. "I'll explain to you when we're not being pressed for time. Or being watched by hominivores" she added with a pointed look at the Futurekind.

"Kind watch you" one of the feral humanoids replied darkly, before motioning for the tribe to take off.

"Come on, let's get you inside" one of the guards said gruffly, but before he could lead them away the fugitive took hold of his sleeve. "My name is Padra Fet Shafe Cane" he said with stars in his eyes. "Can you take me to Utopia?"

The guard smiled back. "Oh, yes. We can!" The man turned to Rose. "And I suppose you'll want to be kept apart from your ex?"

"He's not my ex" Rose said with a small smile, "no need to put him behind bars. I'm Rose Tyler, and this is Captain Jack Harkness."

"Hello" the Captain said, pouring on the charm, and Rose laughed. "Yeah, some things really don't change."

"Right, huh…" The guard tried to find some composure again. "I don't suppose either of you is an engineer or a scientist? We could do with one."

"Not really" Rose replied, "but I've got some experience in both fields, and Captain Harkness is far from a bad mechanic." Jack was going to comment, but Rose stopped him with a negative headshake (and a wince).

Jack sighed. "That's going to take some getting used to."

"I have the sonic, I wear the pants" Rose teased.

"Never let the kids grow up" Jack grumbled, and the young woman raised her eyebrows at him. The ex-Time Agent shook his head. "Story for another time."

"Yeah, questions later" Rose replied. "Let's see if we can make ourselves useful."

"This way" the guard said, and he led them towards a cavern complex dominated by a silo. As they followed, Rose absently tried to tug at her sense of the TARDIS' presence. She let out a sigh, which Jack noticed.

"Something wrong?"

"Just having trouble calling the old girl" Rose replied distractedly. It felt to her like it had in 1969 all over again, if she intensified her pull the slightest bit the TARDIS fought back that much harder to stay where she was. There were no Weeping Angels messing with the time ship here, however, at least as far as Rose knew. No, here were just humans. Plain old humans, living at the end of the universe.

"Stinks a bit, doesn't it?" Jack noted, and then, at someone they were walking past and who had taken offense: "Not you."

"It's funny how that smell has stuck around" Rose noted. "There's no one left from the original strain after year five billion or so, and the last human had so little attachment to what we'd used to be that she got herself reduced to flapping skin and a psychic brain in a jar."

"A _what_?"

Rose laughed. "I'm not kidding you! She wouldn't have smelled like these people do, but that's because she couldn't perspire, she had to constantly be moisturized by lackeys, they followed her around with their sprays."

"You'll have to tell me sometime. There's something we should be doing first", and Jack reached for the guard.

"What is it?"

"Got a question for you" Jack said. "My friend here arrived with her spaceship – doesn't look much, blue box with the word 'Police' on it, but it's a damn good ship, and we'll need it back."

"Once we've taken you to Professor Yana I'll be headed back out for a last water collection" the guard replied. "I'll tell the others, we'll see what we can do." Then, hesitantly. "That ship of yours" he said, looking at Rose.

"Yes?"

"Could it take people to Utopia?"

Rose smiled. "If I have coordinates, there's no reason why not."

The guard smiled widely. "Just ask Professor Yana. We'll get your ship." The man led on, and Jack spoke up from behind the young woman.

"It's really like the old times, isn't it? Minus Mister Big Ears."

"It's really not" Rose replied, her voice heavy. Jack didn't insist, and didn't speak again until after the pair had been given temporary ID badges by a man named Attilo who then led the pair to the silo proper, and asked them to wait in front of a closed door.

Jack and Rose exchanged a look, then grins, then the young woman whipped out her sonic screwdriver and activated it next to the door – to no avail.

"Half deadlocked" Rose said. "Someone messed up a bit with it; should be able to force it open anyway, but hacking through would be faster."

"I've got it" Jack said, charming smile still on from saying 'hello' to someone they'd just passed.

"You really never stop" Rose said with a tongue-touched grin, leaning against the door to stay out of Jack's way as he worked the code pad. "I'm beginning to understand why it could irk the Doc-TOR!"

The last syllable had been yelped: the door had given way and opened on a pit, and Rose had nearly fallen before being caught by Jack. For the briefest of instants she tried to struggle, then she noticed her situation and blushed again.

"Sorry" she mumbled. "I really hate that, you know, being so spooked off by you, but I can't help it."

"Yeah, I've noticed" Jack said drily as he steadied Rose. "You said it had to do with Bad Wolf?"

"It does" Rose said grimly. And then her face brightened. "Will you look at that? Almost like a rocket from the Apollo missions" she said, taking in the sight of the vessel in front of them. "Except, you know, a lot bigger than those of the Apollo missions to the Moon."

"You've been there?" Jack asked, and Rose shook her head before she retreated.

"Been on the Moon, but inside a hospital. Only watched the moon landing live on the telly. I think I'll be going after we're done here."

"You don't mind if I come with?" Jack asked.

"After we get the old girl used to traveling with you, she reacts even worse to your presence than I do."

"That doesn't have to do with Bad Wolf" Jack observed closing the door and turning around to find himself face to face with a jittery Rose.

"It does, actually" the young woman said. "The TARDIS has a much better time sense than I do, but it's the same principle, and I think not entirely dissimilar biology."

"You're kidding me" Jack said drily.

"Wish I did" Rose returned. "Remember the golden glow from the Heart? That's caused by what is called Huon particles. They're time-sensitive and very dangerous, normally fatal when bound into organic lifeforms, but somehow, when I took in the Time Vortex in my head, I must have altered my biology somewhat so I could use some of the TARDIS' Huon energy to survive the Time Vortex long enough to do… whatever I did, aside from kill half a million Daleks and their Emperor."

"So you've had a time sense ever since" Jack deduced, and Rose gave a jittery shake of her head, then groaned.

"This is so stupid – not you" she hastily clarified, "just not being able to function normally around you. And I didn't develop that sense until more than a year later, after I'd lost the Doctor at Canary Wharf."

"You were there" Jack said grimly.

"I was" Rose confirmed, and she went on bitterly. "Torchwood messed everything up. In fact they kept messing up after that. What was left of them was taken over by another alien species, the Racnoss – well, the last of them, at any rate – and covered for a project that nearly got the Earth eaten, and I mean that literally."

"The Christmas Star" Jack mused. "You were involved in that?"

"The Empress of the Racnoss involved me. She needed Huon energy to wake up her children, but couldn't replicate real Huon particles without using a human body's biochemistry to activate them. The Racnoss used a woman, Donna Noble – she's brilliant, you've got to meet with her, Jack – and activated particles inside her."

"Did she end up with a time sense too?" Jack asked.

"No, she's perfectly human, and adorable if you get past her temper. Anyway, the Empress of the Racnoss noticed I had some more of those particles dormant inside me, except they weren't just foreign bodies, they are integrated with my biology and altered it. So instead of absorbing all the energy she'd created inside Donna, all of it and her own were attracted to me and activated the modifications I'd done to myself, including the time sense, and that's how I ended up capable of sensing that you're a fixed point, among other things."

"Among other things?"

"I don't age, I think a bit more clearly than before, I have better reflexes, sharper senses, and I have a connection with the TARDIS. That's about the extent of it. Still human, just with a few special abilities" Rose smiled ruefully.

"Sounds almost like a Time Lady" Jack teased, and Rose groaned.

"Don't start, I've heard enough of that when Martha was around."

"Martha?" Jack grinned. "That's a number of fine ladies you've mentioned from your travels. Think I have a chance with some of them?"

Rose groaned again. "You're a menace, Jack."

"That joke would have sounded a lot better if you'd done it in French."

"Arg!"

"By the way, did you notice how hot it is in there?" Jack commented. "That thing on the other side of the wall is boiling."

"All I can tell you is it's probably not rocket science" Rose quipped, then she quirked her eyebrows. "French?"

"Don't ask."

Jack was spared any further inquiries by the arrival of an old man, his crown of hair turned white, who looked uncannily like-

"Cadfael?" Rose said before she could help herself.

"Who?" the man asked.

"Sorry" Rose said sheepishly, "you just look a lot like a man I know if he were a few years older."

"I see, I see" the man said, tapping his fingers a bit impatiently on his leg. "So you're the visitors they told me could try and help here?"

"Captain Jack Harkness" Jack said, moving forward and turning on the old charm, "and the charming grousing person here is Rose Tyler, Time Lady."

"Not a Time Lady" the old man mumbled, and Rose giggled.

"See? Told you." She turned her attention to the old man. "And you must be Professor Yana – Attilo told us about you."

"I am" the man said a bit absently. "So you're Rose Tyler. Good. Good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good."

"That's good, apparently" Rose told Jack in a stage whisper, but the old man didn't pay attention and proceeded to literally dragging the young woman down to the lower levels, Jack laughing as he followed and "saying hello" to a number of people they passed by.

The trio made it to the foot of the rocket and the adjunct laboratory. There they met with a charming blue alien humanoid with insectoid features.

"Chan, welcome, tho" the blue alien said, but before Rose could reply the professor had dragged her further to some of his equipment.

"Now this is the gravitissimal accelerator" the old man said manically, "it's past its best but it works. And over here", and he pulled Rose again, "is the footprint impellor system. Now do you know anything about endtime gravity?" Not that he waited for an answer, he forged on. "We can't get it to harmonise."

He dragged Rose past Jack and the blue alien again, dropped a "stop it, Jack" in passing ("Are you sure you aren't a Time Lady?" Jack had shot back). More explanations, until finally Rose managed to break the flow with an "and all this feeds into the rocket?"

"Yeah, except without a stable footprint, you see, we're unable to achieve escape velocity" the professor replied grimly, taking out an old-fashioned silver watch out of his pocket and playing with it. The small timepiece felt oddly familiar to Rose, and there was a little _something_ about it making her curious to open it.

"…think, Miss Tyler? Any ideas?"

"Can I have a look at that watch?"

"You're not really interested in our problems, are you?" the man said grumpily.

"I am" Rose shot back, "it's just that right now, I'm a bit distracted because that thing looks a bit familiar, and this is nearly one hundred trillion years further than I've ever gone, and if I can take a peek at your watch, that curiosity will be satisfied enough that I can actually focus on your problem."

"I'm distracted by the damn drums in my head, but that doesn't stop me, does it?" the professor grumbled, but he did hold out the watch for Rose to examine.

The young woman was baffled. "The engravings on the top, they're Gallifreyan! And not just that, it feels like it has a mind of its own… Did you meet a Time Lord?"

"I doubt it, I had that watch on me when I was found lying on the coast of the Silver Devastation when I was a little kid" the old man groused, pocketing the object. "So. Five impact patterns to harmonise then unify. Ideas?"

Rose exchanged a look with Jack, who returned a "not my field, time girl" which made the young woman groan.

"On second thought, never let me introduce you to Donna."

"If I call you 'beautiful', the Doctor's going to cross back from his parallel universe just to tell me to stay away" Jack replied with a grin.

"Would almost be worth it" Rose said tartly, and she returned her attention to the increasingly irate professor. "I need my ship. I doubt I could resolve your issue directly, this doesn't seem like they're impossibly advanced concepts compared with those involved in transmaterialisation across half a universe but it's just not something I've studied as extensively as you have, so I think our best bet is bypassing the need and using the TARDIS to launch you in the right direction."

"You have a time ship of your own" the old man said flatly, then he shook his head. "That was stupid of me. I meant, you have a _space_ ship of your own."

Rose grinned at him. "Both, actually, and one better – Time And Relative Dimensions In Space."

"Chan, then you could take us to Utopia, tho" the blue alien interjected enthusiastically, at which Rose cringed.

"The relative dimensions bit is the reason I'm not offering to take you all directly to this Utopia, at least not all at once" she said apologetically. "Not that I couldn't fly her there, at least after a few adjustments to a little navigational issue she's having right now, but she's so huge I'm not sure a number of you wouldn't get lost in some place I haven't explored yet – and let's not get started about where we'd lose all the stuff that mammoth of a rocket you've got must contain."

The blue girl gaped at Rose. "Chan, you haven't visited your whole ship, tho?"

"Time and relative dimensions in space, does exactly as it says on the box." Rose smiled mischievously. "Well, technically it says 'Police Public Call Box' on the box, but let's not permit that kind of detail to get in the way."

"You're making me look sane in comparison" the professor grumbled, "and God knows a lot of people here think differently."

"Probably because you think differently" Rose said offhandedly, and the blue alien giggled, earning herself a protesting "Hey, I meant that in a good-way!" from the blonde woman.

At which Jack barked a laugh. "You've become even worse of a babbler than the Doc'!"

"Special transitive property of the TARDIS, the one at the helm of the ship inherits the gob."

"Chan, your friend is crazy, tho" the blue alien half-giggled, and Rose walked over to her, holding out a hand and-

"Ehhh!"

-bumping into Jack's backpack, falling over. A clasp gave, and a secure, transparent cylinder partially slid out, containing-

"A human hand" the professor said, unfazed, while the blue woman next to him looked in fright.

"Time Lord hand, not that it's done me any good" Jack supplied. Rose rolled to the side, looked at the container and then stared upward at her friend.

"Is that the hand he lost against the Sycorax the night he regenerated?"

"Think so" Jack said. "Not the kind of thing he'd have wanted left behind, plus I needed a Doctor detector."

"Is that how you spotted the old girl in Cardiff?" Rose asked.

"No, had a camera monitoring the rift and happened to be looking at it when the TARDIS showed up on the screen."

"So, luck?"

Jack grinned. "Basically."

"Lucky me" Rose replied with an answering grin of her own, and she got back up and finished making her way to the blue alien girl, holding out her hand. "So, before we were rudely interrupted by someone else's hand: Rose Tyler, how do you do?"

"Chan, my name's Chantho, tho" the blue alien replied, taking and shaking Rose's hand gingerly. "Are you and your friend Time Lords?"

"Not me, blue, hundred percent healthy male human" Jack said with a beaming smile, which then turned mischievous. "My friend's fifty percent human, fifty percent Time Lady, one hundred percent hot."

"If I didn't know better I'd think you were suggesting a threesome" Rose said tartly.

"I am offering a threesome" Jack replied, launching Chantho into a fit of embarrassed giggling, and the professor into renewed grumbling.

"Is there any chance in the next century either of you is going to give me a hand?"

"Got a handy spare Time Lord hand, if you want" Jack quipped, and Rose hastily stepped between the two.

"We need the TARDIS. Once she's here, we'll check whether she can handle the harmonization you talked about."

"You talk like that ship of yours is alive" the professor grumbled.

"She is. And even if we can't get this to work, we'll find another way of taking your people and their supplies away from the end of the universe – that's why this ship of yours is so big, isn't it? To take everything you may need to terraform and settle another world."

The professor visibly deflated. "It's those people's hope. We don't actually know if there will be something waiting at the end of the journey, and I never could have gotten the ship to work on my own." He sighed. "That title of mine is an affectation, really; it's been long since nobody is left that can make such complex science function, let alone explain it. Only survivors are left."

"But you're still doing everything you can to give these people hope" Rose replied with a fond smile, "and people can't live without hope. Don't demean your work – not when you've already given them so much and taken them so far."

"On a road that might lead them nowhere" the old man said dejectedly.

"You never know. Where is this Utopia you're sending them to?"

"Oh, it's far beyond the Condensate Wilderness, out towards the Wildlands and the Dark Matter reefs, calling us in" the professor explained. "It sends a call, over and over again. Come to Utopia. Originating from that point."

"And what d'you think's out there?" Rose prompted.

"We can't know" the old man replied. "A colony, a city, some sort of haven? The Science Foundation created the Utopia Project thousands of years ago to preserve mankind, to find a way of surviving beyond the collapse of reality itself. Now perhaps they found it. Perhaps not. But it's worth a look, don't you think?" he concluded with a faint smile, and Rose responded in kind, before turning to Jack and Chantho.

"See? A bringer of hope."

"Chan, I know, tho" the blue alien replied. "Chan, that's why I've stayed with him all these years, tho."

Jack didn't share their enthusiasm. "Except that rocket's not going to fly, is it? This footprint mechanism thing, it's not working."

"You've heard your friend" the professor said gruffly. "We'll find a way."

"A way that involves a working boost reversal circuit" Jack replied, coming to stop in front of some cables and their attachments. "Nice rig you've got here, by the way, prof'. What's that you used as a binder?" He sniffed at one of the cables. "Gluten?"

"Don't tell me he Mac Gyvered that entire system" Rose said with disbelief, and Jack grinned at her.

"Oh yes. Almost brilliant, except for the reverse boost circuit needing, well, reverse-feeding."

"Of course it does!" the professor said, slamming his palm on his forehead. Then he deflated. "Oh, but that's pointless. I haven't got the materials to establish a reverse-feeding link from the neutralino mapping."

"That would be because of the gluten" Jack said, and the professor grunted.

"I don't have anything that could have the exact reverse electrodynamic properties."

"You don't, but I have a sonic screwdriver and a rather good set of instructions" Rose said, taking a cable off Jack's hands.

"Hey!"

"Shush, Jack." Rose frowned with concentration, fiddling with the sonic, then she pointed it at the cable and activated it for a few seconds, running all over the length before she tugged at it energetically. She was rewarded by a sudden power surge, and the activation of several systems.

"See? Nothing works like teamwork" Rose said, grinning, and her expression was mirrored on all three other faces.

"Chan, they will fly, tho!"

"Oh yes, Chantho, they will!"

* * *

The loading of the rocket was really more of a migration. Most of the supplies were already inside; but the people weren't, and moving them was a time-consuming process. Rose's request – or Jack's request – wasn't forgotten in the midst of the transhumance, and the TARDIS was brought to the professor's laboratory. The time ship clearly fascinated old Professor Yana.

"How far can you travel with this beautiful thing?" he asked as the TARDIS was being put down.

"Well, anywhere in time and space, really" Rose replied. "The only things she doesn't do well are paradoxes and parallel universes. From what I gather, those possibilities were lost with the Time Lords."

"Both would be fascinating concepts" the professor mused. "You're not going to Utopia either, are you?"

"Either?" Rose quirked her eyebrows. "You're not leaving this place?"

"Someone has to stay behind and activate the mechanism" the professor said ruefully, then he sighed heavily. "It's just as well. The drums have tired me. It's time I went to sleep."

"That's the second time you've mentioned the drums" Rose observed.

"Oh yes, sound inside my head" the old man replied with a small smile. "Heard them all my life. Every waking hour. Still, no rest for the wicked."

"I couldn't ever imagine you as a wicked man" Rose said with a fond smile. "Not someone who worked so hard to save all these people."

"Professor!" Attilo's voice called from a monitor. "Systems are down! Professor, are you getting me?"

The professor walked over to his monitors. "I'm here! We're ready! Now, all you need to do is connect the couplings, then we can launch!" Then he slammed a hand on his controls. "God sake! This equipment, needs rebooting all the time."

Whirring signalled Rose's appearance with her sonic screwdriver at the professor's side. It soon also heralded the return of Attilo's face on the monitor.

"Are you still there?" the man asked.

"Ah, present and correct" the professor replied. "Send your man inside. We'll keep the levels down from here."

"Levels of what?" Rose asked.

"Stet radiation, room underneath the rocket's flooded with it" the professor supplied, and Attilo reported again.

"He's in."

"Yes, yes, good luck to him. Captain!" the old man shouted out for Jack, "can you keep an eye on the levels and keep them below red?"

"Yes, sir" Jack replied with enthusiasm. An alarm sounded.

"Zero point two" the professor said. "Keep it level."

"Yes, sir."

But Jack's dials refused to stay put no matter his efforts, which wasn't surprising considering-

"Chan, we're losing power, tho!"

"Radiation's rising, we've lost control!" Jack shouted.

"The chamber's going to flood!" the professor said, panic mounting.

"We can jump start the override" Jack said, grasping cables from underneath his console, and the professor cried out in warning.

"Don't! It's going to flare!"

But he went unheeded; Jack brought the cables together and electrocuted himself.

"Jack!" Rose left the professor's side and ran to him.

"Chan, don't touch the cables, tho!"

"Oh, and the poor man in there is dead too" the professor said, sounding utterly defeated and collapsing on a seat.

Meanwhile Rose had nearly reached Jack and forced herself to reach for him. "Oh, you and I are going to have a talk" Rose groused, bringing the body away from the cables.

"He's dead, young woman" the professor pointed out, "just as dead as that poor man in the chamber below. It's over; we've failed."

"We're not giving up now" Rose replied through gritted teeth.

"What else are we supposed to do?" the old man said desperately. "Nobody can reach the couplings without dying, the chamber's flooded with radiation! And without the couplings, the engines will never start! It was all for nothing!"

"Then if I give Jack that lecture I'm going to sound like the biggest of hypocrites" Rose groused, stepping away from him.

"Chan, but your friend just died, tho!" the blue alien said, horrified.

"Oh, he sure did" Rose said matter-of-factly. "The thing is, he doesn't do staying dead."

"HURRR!"

Rose turned to an utterly bewildered professor. "So, about that room nobody can enter without dying?"

* * *

Rose and Jack ran down towards the chamber, passing by Attilo in the control room.

"What are you doing?" the man called out at them.

"Just get in your ship!" Jack shot back. "You'll fly, I promise!"

"A man with a heart of gold" Rose commented, out of breath, and then she gaped as they stopped in front of the door to the chamber. "Seriously, you're taking your clothes off?"

"We don't know that stet radiation affects clothes" Jack returned, to which Rose had nothing to answer but a groan.

"You really _are_ shameless."

"And you love me for it, Time girl."

"You're stopping at your undergarments."

"Because if I take them off, Doc's going to kill me when he gets back." Jack entered the room, and Rose closed the door behind him. There still was a communication system open between the outside and inside, and Jack took advantage of it. "So, got to pop the question."

"We aren't getting married, Jack" Rose said tartly, and the man laughed.

"Know better than to offer. You know, the Doctor didn't really mind all that much when I went after anybody but you, oh boy, did he mind. 'Hands off the blonde' was what he said, very early."

"He'd promised my mum he'd protect me" Rose said wistfully. "Kept his word to the last, until he really couldn't."

"What's it like?"

"What is like what?"

"Living the life of the Doctor?"

"Terrifying" Rose admitted. "Most of the travels aren't all that bad, but every so often I'll land in some situation I can't handle and people get killed. Guards in Egypt. Martha's sister, and all those people at Lazarus' reception. Sally Sparrow."

"People died when we were with the Doctor too" Jack noted as he continued his work on the couplings. "Even he couldn't save everyone."

"I'm really not on his level" Rose said dejectedly. "Not even on mine, apparently. I told you I met this woman, Professor River Song. Another time traveller – a Time Lady, perhaps, but I never got to find out."

"Cute?"

Rose let out a small laugh. "She'd probably be your type. Anyway, apparently, she knew me from at some point in my future, and according to her I become a lot more skilled at handling complex scientific problems than I am now. Oh, and the best part: the Doctor returns, too."

"Good, because I need to give him a good kick in the ass" Jack said, and Rose laughed.

"Wait in line, he's not getting away with leaving you behind and lying to me about it."

"Don't do it, Rosie" Jack said quietly.

"Why?" Rose asked.

"Because what he needs from you is your hand to hold."

Rose blushed, then looked at her feet. "I really miss him."

"Well, you're going to have to do some investigating about him if you're going to meet again before it's too late for him" Jack said. "I've learned he got killed while he was exiled from his planet and forced to stay on Earth in the late sixties, and UNIT think you're the one who's done it later in your timeline."

"Exiled from his planet?" Rose said, shocked. "But he can't have been exiled!"

"Why not?" Jack stepped out of the room, and back into his pants.

"The Doctor can't have been exiled from Gallifrey by the Time Lords because there are no Time Lords left" Rose explained. "They all died in the Time War. He was the last of them."

"Then we've got something impossible happening" Jack said darkly, and he stepped in front of Rose. "Look, I know for a fact the Doctor dies in exile from his home world; it's all in the UNIT records, and those aren't lying. If you tell me you're absolutely certain there were no Time Lords left when we travelled with him, it can mean two things: first, he was lying and everything's alright, or second, we've got a paradox of colossal proportions on our hands poised to collapse the entire universe and we've got to do something about it real fast. Either way, we've got to check as soon as we can."

"And manage without meeting with ourselves in the sixties, just to keep things simple" Rose said grimly.

"That, too" Jack confirmed. "Come on, we're done here!"

They ran with renewed urgency, almost deafened by the engines of the rocket roaring to life as it took off. This time, Rose and Jack ran not because the departure of the last humans to Utopia was at stake, but because the end of the universe might come much earlier if the Doctor had told the truth about the Time War, and Rose _knew_ he had not lied. The Daleks had confirmed to her that it was all true, which only left the paradox, but there was no time now to fill Jack in on that. The pair needed to get to the TARDIS really quickly, which would have been a lot easier if the door to Professor Yana's laboratory had not been slammed shut right in front of their faces.

"Professor, let us in!" Rose shouted out, but to no avail.

"Rosie, we've got a problem" Jack said.

"Like I hadn't noticed!"

"We've got _another_ problem. Listen!"

Listen Rose did, and the hunting cries that resounded in the distance were frighteningly familiar.

"Let's get the door" she said in a shaking voice, "same principle as the one above us."

"That's going to be cutting it a little fine."

"More reason to get to work now- AH!"

Rose nearly bolted, surprised at the same time by Jack closing in and the sound of a weapon being shot on the other side of the door.

"Focus, Rosie, focus!"

"I'm trying!" the young woman replied through gritted teeth, returning her attention to the locking mechanism, which quickly responded with a satisfying click and the opening of the door.

"Get in!" Jack shouted. "I'll shut it again."

"Professor, wait!"

Rose had got inside just in time to see the old man shut the door of the TARDIS on himself (and the Doctor's hand in a jar). She ran straight to the ship, barely registering the corpse of Chantho on the floor, and rammed her key into the TARDIS lock – to no avail, the lock didn't work.

"Old girl, let me in!" Rose cried out, to no avail. "Professor, open!"

"Killed by an insect!" the old man's voice grated from inside. "A girl. How inappropriate."

"Rose, we've got problems!" Jack called from behind the young woman, struggling to shut the door on Futurekind.

Meanwhile, inside, the professor was talking on. "You didn't know, you freakish simpleton, did you? The watch was a Chameleon Arch! And now, the Master is reborn!"

An explosion of golden light flashed from inside the TARDIS, one very familiar to Rose.

"The professor is a Time Lord" she breathed out.

"Nice to know!" Jack called from the entrance. "We've got other problems!"

The golden light faded, and a woman's voice spoke from inside the TARDIS, one which chilled Rose to the bone.

"Now, where were we – oh! New voice. Woman's voice. Horribly fitted clothes, I really need to do something about the wardrobe, and same about the name, maybe, the Master really doesn't sound quite correct."

"Missy, please!" Rose pleaded. "You know me – you're my friend in the future – please, let us inside!"

"Missy, I like the sound of that. Hah! And me, friends with a mongrel like you?" Missy barked. "That would be a new one! Except… Ohhh, naughty girl, you have no idea what you've just done, have you?"

"What did I do?" Rose cried out.

"Why, listening in on you gave me all I needed to know about my own plans! Haha! Now all I have to do is actually think them up! Ohhh, this is priceless!"

"Missy, I beg you!"

"Save your breath!"

Familiar whirring started, and the TARDIS began to dematerialize.

"End of the universe!" Missy shouted in lieu of farewells. "Have fun! See you later! Woooooo!"

The TARDIS disappeared, and a thud echoed from the entrance, from which Rose sensed Jack approaching.

"Door's only going to hold so long" Jack said grimly, "we've got to find a way out of here – your eyes are glowing!"

"I'm trying to call the old girl back, but it's like since 1599! She's rejecting my call!"

"And all we've got to get out of here is a broken vortex manipulator" Jack grumbled.

"Then we're stuck here!"

Rose looked around frantically, trying to spot anything of use in the laboratory. She froze when her eyes caught letters traced in blood on the floor by the dead Chantho.

"Bad Wolf" she whispered.

"Following you all the way to the end of the universe" Jack growled, and Rose whirled back to face him (and winced.)

"But that's it! That vortex manipulator, it has to be able to find the Time Vortex!" she said enthusiastically.

"Except it's broken and can't hold it" Jack countered, only to see Rose make a grab for his wrist and reveal the device.

"Doesn't matter" Rose said in rapid-fire syllables. "All that does is, I can look into the Vortex from it, search for the old girl, get us on Missy's trail ASAP."

"In a minute you're going to try and explain to me that you are really part TARDIS" Jack grumbled.

"You said the problem with your manipulator is it can't hold the Time Vortex" Rose replied. "I can hold the Time Vortex."

"Nobody can do that" Jack protested, "they'd burn from the inside within seconds!"

"I've done it twice" Rose countered. "That's what I did the first time I looked into the Heart of the TARDIS, and since then, I've done it again and lived. I can do this, Jack" she said, smiling, her golden eyes gleaming faintly. "I can get us out of here."

Jack swallowed. "You could still die. You'd be trying to guide us through the Time Vortex without the protection of a capsule, and with every single one of your instincts telling you to run the hell away from me."

"You're not staying behind" Rose growled, seeing what her friend was getting at. "I'm _not_ leaving you behind."

Jack shook his head. "You're worth dying for, not me. I can't die. I will live forever."

"If I leave you behind, you'll be getting killed forever" Rose countered. "Now let me see that vortex manipulator, and when I give you the word, punch it. With any luck, we'll arrive in a place where we can find a couple of working models of these toys."

It was the roughest time travel Rose ever undertook, including the one she'd been forced into by a Weeping Angel. It was also the second one which left her unconscious before she arrived…

* * *

 **A/N:** Seriously, Missy was never going to be one of the good guys.

 **Bad Wolf Jen** , thanks as always for taking the time to review. Original stories wouldn't have fit with the actual Master arc, but they will return with the "next season" – right off the start, as a matter of fact, as we'll be paying a visit to Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton.

Everyone else, this "season" is about to come to a close, with only another story left after this one. If you think it has been worth the read and good enough that others should maybe give it a try, please consider leaving a review. More than a handful of people leaving comments is a very good sign when you've stumbled on a story longer than a hundred thousand words, and this one has now passed that mark.


	12. Interlude - Peering through the barrier

**A/N:** Sorry, Doctor, I don't own you. Actually, not sorry, that would have a zero chance of ending well for me!

* * *

 **Interlude – Peering through the barrier  
**

* * *

The Doctor's life in Pete's World was a frustrating one. He'd entered the parallel world with nothing but the clothes on his back (and everything that fitted in his considerably expanded pockets, but that didn't count); everything that truly mattered to him had been left behind in his original dimension. And at the top of that very short list were the TARDIS and Rose Tyler, for very different reasons of course, but not quite as easy to rank as the Doctor would have thought.

One of the curses of being a Time Lord was being able to mark precisely the passage of time for himself – it was nowhere as complicated to ascertain his age as he'd always made it sound, all the way back to when he'd feigned hesitation and told Steven and Dodo he was about four hundred and fifty years old, shortly after regenerating into his second incarnation. And now, it had been exactly one year for him since he'd said goodbye to Rose Tyler on Bad Wolf Bay; one year since he'd almost confessed his feelings to the young human woman, only to run out of time.

He'd almost died three days later. The parallel universe had its own problems, and among them had been the last of the Racnoss showing up in London for Christmas with a very complicated plan involving the firm who'd installed all the locks in this world's Pete's mansion. Not that Jackie hadn't tried to get the Doctor to remove some of the securities and barriers the much vainer parallel Jackie had got installed, but at that point the Time Lord had been depressed to the point of near-catatonia. It had taken all of Jackie's powers (and a very well-aimed slap) to get the Doctor involved in an inquiry revolving around the sudden disappearance of a temp secretary who worked for HC Clements, and it had taken Jackie's intervention again to stop the Doctor from just letting himself drown, a desperate "Don't you dare break my daughter's heart, you bloody alien!"

And so the Doctor had stopped the flood from the Thames and lived unhappily after.

He hadn't told Jackie why he'd been mired in such despair; he hadn't told anyone, not for that entire year. The truth of the matter was simply that the barrier separating Pete's World from the Void was in an extremely precarious state and beyond anyone's ability to repair. Maybe at some point small cracks in both realities might appear again, but they would never be "wide" enough for the Doctor himself to slip through without causing a fatal tear in the barrier separating Pete's World from the Void, leading to a total event collapse - the end of that universe. And that was because he himself was an impossibly complicated time-space event, one that couldn't just pass through without causing damage. Only the existence of a crack wide enough to threaten reality on the skins of both universes would allow the Doctor to slip through the barrier and into the Void "safely": the kind of cracks caused by an entire universe collapsing. Obviously, the Doctor wasn't going to try and cause that…

So he'd travelled. Run, really, because this was more of a case of the Doctor running from the inescapable truth that he was stuck in this parallel universe and unlikely to ever go back to what little he'd had left after he'd destroyed Gallifrey. Of course, travelling at random with a vortex manipulator wasn't really like navigating through the universe with the TARDIS, and there wasn't a hand available for him to hold in his recent journeys. He'd tried, but the Doctor had been incapable of bringing himself to take someone else along on his ride for more than a single trip.

Presently, though, the Doctor wasn't traveling. He was back in 2008 parallel London, where he'd been called by Pete Tyler, who oversaw that universe's Torchwood institute (UNIT, and the UN for that matter, did not exist in Pete's World), and the reason for that call was a remarkably unpleasant one.

It was normally impossible to travel between parallel universes. Monitoring them, though? That was well within the reach of the Doctor's considerable skills, and he'd had little difficulty isolating the one where Rose and the TARDIS currently resided. Of course, the Doctor couldn't quite follow what events were happening there, but the major upheavals, the dangerous paradoxes, the abnormally complex space-time events, the threats to reality? Those the instruments could detect, as well as a very unusual phenomenon the Torchwood teams couldn't interpret.

"Well, I couldn't just give you specific guidelines for every kind of readings you might be getting" the Doctor said with an irritated tone as he studied the instrumentation he'd set up, an anxious Pete Tyler and the very, very, very friendly scientist overseeing the actual operation, a Malcolm Taylor who hadn't been put down in the slightest by the Doctor's rebuke.

"I know about that" the man replied enthusiastically, "but I thought you'd be interested. It's like that reality has reached an isostatic balance so perfect the universal timeline's reached an entirely immutable state, like someone had permanently decided the fate of everything until the end of that universe."

"Which is not supposed to be possible" Pete interjected, his tone distinctly less happy.

The Doctor frowned, and put his glasses on, concentrating on what he was reading. "1969" he eventually said.

"What happens in 1969?" Malcolm asked. The scientist didn't notice colour draining from the Doctor's face, but Pete did.

"It's something very bad, isn't it?"

The Doctor tore the glasses off his face. "It's a lot worse than bad. There's a paradox of universe-rending proportions that happened in Rose's universe in 1969, one which should have destroyed all of reality bar nothing, but the universe just goes on like absolutely nothing could ever happen, and that's only got one possible meaning: someone has activated a paradox machine."

"What's a paradox machine? How does it work?" Malcolm asked eagerly, earning himself a furious glare.

"Stop it!" the Doctor barked. "There's nothing fun or entertaining or even remotely interesting about the existence of a paradox machine. That entire universe is in terrible danger, and Rose is one-hundred-percent guaranteed to be caught right at the centre of it!"

"You told the story of how Rose caused a paradox once, back in your universe" Pete remarked, "and I can think of a reason why she'd have been very tempted to try to cause another."

"That's impossible" the Doctor said angrily. "Only a Time Lord would know how to create a paradox machine, and the only Time Lord who can exist at any point in that entire universe is a version of me. And I'd _never_ help Rose build a paradox machine, not even if it meant I could change what happened at Canary Wharf."

"When you set these up, you said these instruments of yours would be capable of detecting and identifying a Time Lord if someone knew what to look for" Pete observed. "You might as well check if there's any chance Rose and you might have gotten _that_ desperate."

The Doctor shook his head. "That's impossible, that would be a paradox massive enough to need a paradox machine to hold it together happening before I ever could start building the paradox machine."

"And why would _that_ be impossible?" Malcolm ventured.

"Because you need a TARDIS to build a paradox machine, and there's only one in existence in all of the realities, my TARDIS."

"And there would be no other means of sustaining that first paradox without a TARDIS?" Pete inquired.

The Doctor's face turned grim. "One other device would have had that power. I used it to end the Time War."

Pete gave the Doctor an equally grim look. "And that device… Do you think anybody could have found it?"

The Doctor shook his head. "It's time-locked with Gallifrey."

"Then there has to be another Time Lord, Doctor, Sir!" Malcolm said, his enthusiasm returning, "That's the only other possibility!"

Another headshake. "They all died. I'm the only one left."

"Wouldn't hurt to at least try and have a look" Pete said quietly. "If only because if something happened to Rose, my wife will want to know why."

It was something of a low blow, and both men knew it. Truth be told, the Doctor himself wished there were some way of finding out what was going on with the young woman who had captured his hearts, but she was a human, and humans were too simple to leave any kind of trace discernible from a parallel universe. On the other hand, a Time Lord _had_ to be involved, and them, the Doctor would be able to identify. But that was impossible, wasn't it?

The Doctor put his glasses back on and refocused on the bizarre assemblage of twenty-first machinery he'd rigged the transdimensional detection device from, working fast enough to completely stump poor Malcolm about what he was doing, which at first consisted of tracking down space-time events of enough complexity to possibly signal the existence of a Time Lord. And the number of results his initial search returned left the Doctor in a state of shock.

"Five distinct readings" he managed in a voice barely above a whisper. "I'm getting five distinct readings – _three_ potential Time Lords, when there should be just the one, and two other beings leaving an impression not just in Rose's World but also in _this_ universe. In fact…", and the Doctor twisted a few more knobs and typed a few more sequences, "yes, these two leave a mark in all universes. I've never even thought anybody could be so important to all of creation."

"Can you identify them?" Pete prompted, and the Doctor nodded.

"Someone leaving such an imprint of their existence, I should be able to discern their nature. I should even be able to find out their names. They'd echo through all universes, you just have to know where to look for them…" More rapid-fire input, then: "One of them is actually a human. A woman – not Rose, her name is Donna Noble. She's close together with the other MIP and… hold on… two Time Lords. I don't know the first one, the second…"

All colour drained from the Doctor's face. He turned to stare at Pete, eyes wide open with fear. "The Master" he said, the fear dominating his voice. "The Master is still alive, and he has the paradox machine. He has the TARDIS. The Master has found Rose."

This Pete wasn't really Rose's father; although she'd risked her life by his side, he hardly knew her. Maybe that was why the man managed to keep his composure, the Doctor remarked absently for himself. "Who is the Master?" Pete asked, his voice level.

The Doctor turned again to his instruments. When he replied, it was in a very quiet voice: "My best friend. And my most terrifying enemy – he's brilliant, stone-cold brilliant, a genius, really – but he's insane. And if he somehow survived the Time War, he's going to be even more deranged."

"How deranged are we talking about?" Pete asked calmly.

"He already wanted to live forever and rule the universe before the war" the Doctor supplied.

"But you've always stopped him, haven't you?" Malcolm chirped in.

"It wasn't always me" the Doctor grated. "And I know I didn't stop him this time around – I don't remember having done it, and I can't seem to find a later version of me. I don't know if that other Time Lord I don't know can stop him – it'd take at the very least another Time Lord or something like the Daleks." The Doctor's voice broke, and a tear rolled down his cheek. "And poor Rose… She won't have understood what hit her until it's too late."

"You think she died" Pete said soberly.

"I don't know" the Doctor replied. "I hope not, but I also hope the Master hasn't captured her. That could go really bad."

There was a pregnant pause. Pete eventually broke the silence. "You said there was another special presence you might be able to name."

"I should be, yeah" the Doctor said, letting his voice trail. He resumed his activity, but without the manic speed of earlier, and without any expectations of another shock like the ones before. The Doctor was wrong there, and when he turned towards Pete again, it was with a haunted expression.

"It's Rose" he murmured. "She's the other most important person. And something terrible has happened to her."

"Something like what" Pete prompted, his tone gentle.

"I don't know. She has two other names, not human, and I don't understand one of them. I don't even know what language it would be in."

Pete took a moment to digest that. "And the other?"

The Doctor's answer came in a haunted murmur: "Bad Wolf."

* * *

 **A/N:** Thanks to **Lebreau Moon** and **Bad Wolf Jen** for the reviews.


	13. XI - Because you are Rose Tyler

**A/N:** I own a drum. I don't own the Drums.

* * *

 **XI. Because you are Rose Tyler**

* * *

The second time Rose Tyler materialized in her bedroom, Martha Jones was actually there to see it, and it was even more impressive than that one time the TARDIS had disappeared then reappeared in front of her – spectacular was the word, seeing the woman first appear as though seen through a silvery curtain sparkling with small golden flares. Then Rose had fully materialized, and so had the man in a long officer coat accompanying her. Unlike Rose, he was conscious, and he was supporting a very unresponsive time traveller.

"Captain Jack Harkness" the man said with a smile that might have been intended as charming but really came off as an automatic gesture. "And you don't really need to remember that name" he continued as he hauled Rose into his arms, "we're not staying."

"You're not leaving until you've told me what happened to Rose" Martha said, jumping out of her bed, then she mumbled. "Same old clothes, can't have been too long for her."

"You know her" Jack said flatly.

"I travelled with her. Now put her in the bed and either tell me what happened to her or shut up and let me examine her."

"You're not going to be able to do anything helpful" Jack replied as he carried Rose through the cluttered room over to the bed, "I don't think human medical science covers consequences of a meta-human directly accessing the Time Vortex."

"What?"

"Exactly." Jack laid Rose down gently over the bedsheets, making sure her head was supported by a pillow, then he stood back erect and faced Martha. "Besides you being a med student, going by the kit in this room I assume we're shortly before 2010."

"It's the 27th of October, 2008" Martha supplied. "Harold Saxon was just named Prime Minister by her Majesty and moves into Number 10 later this Monday morning."

Jack arched his eyebrows. "Got his landslide win?"

"He did" Martha said with a small smile.

"Would have voted for him too, guess I missed the chance" Jack replied, smiling back. "You said you travelled with Rosie?"

"Yeah, until six nights ago" Martha said, her expression turning miserable. "The failed Lazarus experiment."

"Damn. You lost someone there."

"My sister, Tish."

"Two members of my team were there" Jack said, "I know what happened. They saw Rose deflect the worst of the blast and work to extract as many people as possible from the debris."

"You try telling my mother that" Martha replied with a bitter laugh. "I know she saved a lot of people" she added in a quieter voice. "I just wish Tish had been one of them – and before you say it, no, I don't blame Rose for that. It was that idiot Lazarus' fault. Trying to turn himself immortal and young forever, like that would even be possible."

"You didn't travel with Rose long, did you?" Jack said lightly.

"Couple of trips only" Martha replied. "There was a five billion years-old being at the end of the second one, but they died, not immortal. I did see a rejuvenation in ancient Greece, but that was a one-time thing and really not permanent."

Jack grinned. "Oh-ohh, when this thing is all over and Rose gets the TARDIS back, we're dragging you off on a nice, long trip to get rid of that rational mind of yours."

"Does that come before or after my mother kills you?" Martha shot back.

"Won't hurt me" Jack returned, and his expression turned serious. "Actually, if helping Rose right now is going to put us into any kind of danger and you see me leap in front of a knife, in the path of a bullet or on top of a grenade, you just let me do it. I'm as close as it gets to immortal, I can't stay dead."

Martha stared at him. "What?"

"You can still do CPR if you like, I enjoy waking up to it."

Martha groaned. "Does anybody who spends any significant length of time with Rose ever stay sane?"

"Sane is boring" Jack said.

Martha was about to reply that she could do with a bit of sane, thank you very much, when she heard Rose groan. The young time traveller was stirring.

"Well, that was quick" Jack said casually, and Rose started and tried to scramble away from him for an instant, until-

"Did I say how much I hate reactin' to you like tha'?" she slurred.

"You have, but all the options leading to you not mentioning it are pretty crappy, so I'll pass" Jack returned, grinning at the blonde woman. "How are you feeling?"

"Ranks up there with New Year's day in 2003" Rose groused, then she looked at Martha and smiled tentatively. "Hi. And thanks?"

Martha's expression turned sad. "Like I told Jack, mum might blame you for what happened, I don't." Her expression turned fiercer. "Or I won't unless I find out it's been years for you since Lazarus."

"You didn' see your mum that night" Rose said very quietly. "I'm sorry, but my not bein' aroun' her survivin' children was for the best."

Martha's nostrils flared in anger. "How long?"

"'bout a year" Rose murmured, massaging her temples.

"A year" Martha repeated. "Tish-"

Jack cut her off bluntly. "You don't get to blame Rosie for running away until after you know what it's like to have lost everyone that ever mattered to you."

"Not quite" Rose mumbled, "there's Martha an' Donna, there's Professor Song, an' now there's you."

"Yeah, I'm the guy that understands you best in the whole while universe and we've known one another for all of two months – that's not remotely close to having a family member or a truly close friend in your life, and we both know it."

Martha gaped at Rose. "You've really got _no one_?"

"She doesn't" Jack confirmed, "and I can't say I blame her, having a fair idea what her life is like."

Martha's attention turned to Jack. "You are alone too?"

"I was born human and am close to two centuries old, you guess how many old friends died on me."

"You're _two hundred_?"

"And looking good, don't I?" Jack said with a cheeky grin.

"Time an' a place, Jack" Rose slurred.

"Rose is twenty-three, though" Martha went on, "she isn't two hundred."

Jack shook his head. "Doesn't matter. All of her close family is trapped in a parallel world, and how exactly do you tell an old schoolmate or a second cousin about how you're really not entirely human, you're going to live for hundreds of years, and hop all over space and time for a living?" Martha had no reply, of course, and Jack nailed her with a cold look. "Exactly. So you don't get to go all high and mighty on Rose because she stayed away for a year. You don't until after you've lived for a while with only pain, loss and the tally of the dead for company."

"Jack" Rose tried, but her friend cut her off.

"No, Rosie, you're not worrying your pretty little head off about Miss Martha right now. We've got other concerns, starting with how we're going to find the TARDIS, if she's supposed to be somewhere close, and then we have to get back to the late nineteen sixties and stop one hell of a paradox."

Rose swallowed, then chewed on her lower lip. "You're right" she said eventually, "we've got priorities, let's get to them."

"How can I help?" Martha said, a look on her face clearly implying she wasn't accepting 'no' as an answer.

"Right now I'm goin' to try if I can at least get a feel of how distant we're from the old girl in time and space" Rose said, "just gimme a moment."

The young woman focused on her sense of the TARDIS – and instead of the usual golden shine in her eyes, she was surrounded by an angry red wreath of energy and screamed, hastily letting go.

"Oh my God!" Martha said, rushing to the young woman seated in her bed. "Are you alright?"

Rose was now hiding her face in her hands. "The TARDIS" she croaked. "She's all wrong!"

"What do you mean, she's all wrong?" Jack said sharply.

Rose's slur had vanished. "I don't know!" she exclaimed herself. "Missy did something to her."

"Missy?" Martha asked.

"Acquaintance of the Doctor" Rose supplied, "though I'm really starting to doubt she ever was one of his friends. She's been helping me on a couple of occasions, but now I know she was just leading me to the point in my timeline when she would steal the TARDIS. She's played me like a fiddle the whole time we worked together. In fact…"

Rose didn't continue, and Martha prompted her with an "In fact what?"

"Just realized that the old girl hasn't once answered my 'summons' since I've met with Missy in the Library" the blonde woman replied with disgust. "I've been so stupid."

"You've been up against a Time Lord" Jack told her sternly. "She's got who knows how many hundred years of knowledge and experience of time travel over you, it's not your fault you didn't see it coming."

"Not too loud" Rose mumbled, "headache. And the Doctor would have" she added dejectedly.

"You don't know that, and I don't know that" Jack replied harshly. "For all we know Missy got the better of him too – you know he's been rumoured to be dead since the sixties and UNIT think you killed him."

Rose's head snapped up to look at the captain, and she winced. "What year did you say he died in again?"

"April 1969."

Rose groaned. "I _was_ around in April 1969. That's when I lost track of Missy, midway through the month. Waited for her for three months, she never showed up. Wondered about it at the time, too, she said she was stranded."

"Well, she lied, obviously" Jack said.

"She probably had the TARDIS all along." Rose let out a bitter chuckle. "Isn't this brilliant. I've got no TARDIS, can only try and hop haphazardly around if Jack and his vortex manipulator come along, UNIT are after me, they've got a crazy genius who completely outplayed me to guide them. Right now I almost wish Torchwood were still around."

Jack looked at Rose uncomfortably, and she groaned again. "They are, aren't they?"

"In a manner of speaking" Jack replied quietly.

"What's Torchwood?" Martha inquired.

"Secret state agency chartered by Queen Victoria in 1879" Rose supplied, "founded at the manor of the same name after the Doctor saved the Queen from a werewolf. He and I got knighted and banished on the same day. Torchwood went on as a means of securing Britain alien technology and an edge over all other powers – 'if it's alien it's ours' is what they used to say."

Martha quirked her eyebrows. "Used to say?"

"Remember the Cybermen that attacked all over the world and the murderous pepper pots invading from Canary Wharf?" Rose asked, and Martha nodded grimly.

"I lost a cousin that day, like I told you."

"I'm sorry" Rose said sheepishly. "It must be fresh for you, it's been a bit longer for me."

"Lesson number seven about time travellers, it's not that they don't care, it's that it's been too long for them to remember" Jack stated matter-of-facty.

Rose smiled humourlessly. "Careful, Jack, you were this close of accusing me of being an old lady."

"Old is me" Jack returned with a cocky smile.

Martha gave him a questioning look. "You're actually two hundred, not just said that to make a point?"

Jack grinned at Martha. "And forever good-looking." He sobered up as he returned his attention to Rose. "I need to go out and make a call or two. Got some people who could help, so it's not just the two of us."

"The two of us indeed" Rose said, and Martha glared at the other woman.

"You're not just walking out on me again" she said harshly.

"It's too dangerous" Jack said flatly. "Sorry, but I'm with Rosie on that one, you don't know what you want to get into. It's just as bad as what happened at Canary Wharf, if not worse."

Jack left the bedroom, leaving behind a fuming Martha. "I did alright in New New York" the medical student grumbled, "I'm not useless."

"Your mum doesn't need to lose another daughter now" Rose replied quietly.

"I know" Martha hissed, and an uncomfortable silence fell between the two women. It was Martha who broke it. "I'm going back to the living room" she said, and then her tone turned ironical. "Our new lord and master is about to address the Queen's subjects."

"Oh, right, Saxon. He's been rather effective as a minister, from what I remember."

"Voted for him. Leo and dad too. I think Mum didn't, but that's because she's too bitter to accept he did all he could after Lazarus' machine exploded."

"Might try and ask for his help" Rose said, feeling uncomfortable but not quite understanding why.

The two young women adjourned to the living room. Martha made tea for them and came to sit down by Rose on the sofa, the pair of them quietly sipping from their mugs and Rose occasionally rubbing at her temples as they watched the BBC's special edition. Any minute now, Harold Saxon would close a meeting with his advisors about the composition of his government and address the nation. And apparently, from the drumming of her fingers on her sofa…

"That impatient to see him, are we?" Rose teased, tongue between her teeth.

"He _is_ a looker" Martha replied with a grin. Then, wistfully: "Shame he's married."

"Doesn't mean you can't look, does it?"

Martha grinned again. "Look, there he is."

"Let there be silence for Master Saxon" Rose quipped, and Martha shushed her before returning her attention to the TV, fingers still drumming.

It was a happy, even a little manic-looking Saxon who began to speak. "Britain, Britain, Britain, what extraordinary times we've had. Just a few years ago, the world was so small. And then they came, out of the unknown, falling from the skies. You've seen it happen."

"Technically, they fell from Raxacoricofallapatorius" Rose noted, and Martha mock-glared at her.

"Show-off."

Meanwhile Saxon had continued to speak, clips of recent alien invasions replacing his face on the screen. "A spaceship over London. All those ghosts and metal men. The Christmas star that came to kill. Time and time again, the government told you nothing."

"Not that Torchwood told the government much" Rose mumbled, but Martha didn't reply, and the blonde woman didn't grudge her – Saxon had moved on to news that piqued Rose's own interest.

"Citizens of Great Britain, I have been contacted. A message for humanity, from beyond the stars."

Saxon was now replaced by the slightly grainy image of a technologically advanced metal sphere floating in mid-air, which spoke in a pleasant female voice, and in flawless English.

"People of the Earth, we come in peace. We bring great gifts."

"That's a change" Rose whispered, and Martha whispered back.

"Do you know what these are?"

"No idea."

Harold Saxon, now returning on screen, supplied the answer. "They are called the Toclafane."

"What?" Rose blurted.

"You know of them?"

"Questions later" Rose mumbled, now listening very attentively to Saxon, who was going on with his address.

"Tomorrow, we take our place in the universe. Every man, woman and child. Every teacher and chemist and lorry driver and farmer. Oh, I don't know, every girl who didn't pass their A-levels, and every medical student?"

Rose didn't wait to hear the rest of the speech; she grabbed Martha by the sleeve of her pyjamas and started to run.

"What are you doing?" Martha protested.

"Questions later!" Rose shouted back, sonicking the door open and dragging the medical student after her.

"I'm in my PJ's!" the young woman protested again.

"Better look stupid than look dead! Now come on!"

They exited the apartment building and crossed the street just in time to dive behind cars for shelter as the entire place blew up, showering the street with debris and dust.

When Martha emerged from behind her shelter, she was in shock. "Oh my God…" Her mouth fell wide open, and then she started to cough from the inhaled dust. Rose pulled the medical student back down and grabbed hold of her, forcing the face-to-face.

"Okay" Rose said. "Can't leave you behind, you're already involved. Jack will be back in a minute and we're gonna have to run."

"He's after you" Martha breathed. "The Prime Minister is after you."

"The Prime Minister is in league with an alien" Rose said in a tone brooking no discussion. "I figured it out when he called the both of us out. I'll explain, but after we've got away and Jack has got away."

"I'm here" Jack called from behind her, and he helped the two women on their feet. "Everything alright?"

"We aren't hurt" Rose said. "In a couple of minutes this place is going to be swarmed with coppers, we've got to run."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "From the police?"

"From anyone that obeys Britain's Prime Minister" Rose returned grimly. "I'll tell you why later."

"Just like old times" Jack said with a grin as he slipped out of his long coat. He held the garment out for Martha. "Here. You'll look a bit strange, but it beats straight PJs."

"Thanks, I guess" Martha mumbled.

The sonic whirred, and a SUV's doors clacked open loudly, grabbing the pair's attention. Rose was already climbing into the driver's seat. "Get in." Martha and Jack got into the rear seats, Jack grinning again.

"Love it when you take charge, Rosie" he teased, only to get caught off guard by a tense "Time and place, Jack" from Rose as she took off.

The blonde woman drove casually. The trio stayed silent for a while. Soon they were past the rush of police cars, not having attracted much attention. Rose continued for another mile before they ditched the car under a bridge.

The moment they were out, Martha held out a hand to Rose. "I need to call my family."

"Bad idea" Jack pointed out.

"I don't care" Martha shot back. "Phone. Now."

"Here's hoping Britain doesn't have direct access to Archangel" Rose mumbled as she held out the device.

"It was an international project" Jack pointed out, "and Saxon had barely got into politics when the satellites launched."

"Won't matter if he's working with Missy, she could have been involved in anything at literally any point in time" Rose said darkly.

"Who's Missy?" Jack asked. "I got that she tricked you into thinking she was a friend, but she clearly isn't, and that she's a time traveller."

"I think she's a Time Lord. Can regenerate, very familiar about time travel, uses Gallifreyan items, knows how to pilot the TARDIS, knows the Doctor well enough to pretend they're friends, and more importantly, she would know about the Toclafane."

Jack looked confused. "The what?"

"Exactly" Rose said. "They don't exist, they're the Time Lords' equivalent of the Boogie Man, and seeing as how they have to compete with horrors like the Daleks, the Meanwhiles or the Neverweres, they're a lot scarier than plain old floating metal spheres that speak English and may or may not be armed to the brim. I think Saxon is getting played by Missy and he has no idea of what he's about to unleash."

"Smarmy bastard" Jack grunted. "Always was a pleasure to work with, always proved himself a great help, now it turns out he was working against you all along and-"

Jack stared at Rose, and she stared back, mirroring his sudden look of unease. "Time Lords regenerate" he stated, and Rose nodded. "They change appearance when they do, and clearly, they can change their sex when they do."

Rose nodded again. "Same pattern" she breathed. "Professor Yana. Missy. Harold Saxon."

"Exactly."

Rose turned to Martha, who had evidently finished with her phone call, and now gave her companions a hard look. "We've got to help them" she said in a flinty tone.

"Help who?" Jack asked.

"My parents" the student supplied. "Rose, you owe it to them."

"What's going on with them?" Rose asked back calmly, holding out a hand for her phone. The gesture went ignored.

"Saxon's people have got them" Martha said. "We've got to rescue them."

"Great idea" Jack said sarcastically. "The three of us against the whole country."

"We can't leave them in Saxon's hands!" Martha shouted, and Jack grabbed hold of her by the shoulders, forcing the medical student to look at him.

"Listen to me. Harold Saxon controls the police forces of the entire Kingdom. He knows all about us. He's bringing his own pet alien species to invade Earth. He's got UNIT to hunt for Rose, and he's got enough reach over Torchwood to have sent my people on a wild goose chase where they're incommunicado."

"Torchwood?" Rose said sharply.

"Later, Rosie. Now listen to me, Martha" he said, and the other girl narrowed her eyes. "We can't do anything for your parents right now. If you've got any siblings, or any other close relatives, you can try and reach them and warn them, but you've got to do it quick, because there's a good chance Saxon can trace our calls and find out exactly where we are. And we _can't_ help any of them."

"They're my family" Martha replied stubbornly. "And Rose owes them."

"Rose needs to figure out how we can go up against a hostile Time Lord, not to get guilt tripped into a suicide mission" Jack replied harshly, gripping Martha harder when she tried to slap him. "Wake up, woman!" he roared. "The entire planet is about to get taken over by a Time Lord and their client species – everyone is in danger, not just your parents! The only way we can help them is by find a way to stop Harold Saxon and his Toclafanes! You understand that?"

The pair exchanged glares for an instant. Then,

"Let go of me."

Jack released his hold on Martha. The medical student looked at Rose, who had watched the entire exchange with a guilty expression. Then Martha harrumphed, shook her head and proceeded to call her brother Leo. Midway through, she blanched, and then walked back to Rose, returning her phone, call still ongoing.

Rose wasn't surprised to hear the voice of Harold Saxon.

"Miss Tyler."

"Missy" Rose ventured.

"Ha! You did your homework!"

"I suppose you're calling yourself the Master again, then."

"Of course I am." The Master's tone turned business-like. "You told me the Doctor was trapped in a parallel universe. What did he say about the other Time Lords?"

Rose swallowed. "They're gone."

"They lost the Time War."

"Everyone lost. The only Time Lords left are you and the Doctor. And there's maybe a handful of Daleks existing somewhere lost in time and space. They seem to always find a way to escape."

The Master's voice grew tense. "What about Gallifrey?"

"Trapped in a time lock. It burned."

"You're lying."

"The Doctor did it. He had no choice."

There was a silence over the line while the Master mulled over what Rose had told him. The young woman was the one to break it.

"What do you want?"

"The Bad Wolf."

Rose tensed. "You've been after me from the very start" she accused.

"Of course I have" the Master said, his manic enthusiasm returning. "A human with bits of the Time Vortex stuck inside her, capable of piloting a TARDIS and even of connecting with it directly. Do you have any idea what I could make of you?"

"Whatever it is, I'm not interested" Rose returned.

The Master laughed. "I know that. That's why I took the liberty of gathering a few incentives. Martha Jones' parents – pity her sister died, I almost had her hired in my staff. Don't quite have Captain Harkness' little coterie on hand, but I can have them killed with a phone call. Oh, and how kind of you to leave Professor River Song to my tender mercies. We've been having a lot of fun, she and I. Did you know she's really Bad Wolf 2.0?"

Rose couldn't help herself from asking a "What do you mean?"

"You could find out" Saxon replied pleasantly. "All you have to do is surrender yourself to the Police when they catch up to you and we'll be reunited, the Master, the Freak, the Little Wolf and the Aberration."

"Our pet names are a lot less flattering than yours" Rose said acidly, and the Master hissed.

"You will respect my name, and you will respect the last of the Time Lords."

"I've met a number of people who would disagree."

"Their opinion doesn't matter. I'm the last of the Time Lords… The last Time Lord, the one person in the entire universe left with mastery over the laws of time… And if what you say is true, if Gallifrey is gone, I will create a new Gallifrey, and I will ascend at its head, with all of time and space as my dominion, and there is _nothing_ you can do against it!" The Master's voice then turned sickeningly sweet. "But you _will_ help creating it. You can't escape me forever. Tomorrow morning, this world will be mine."

"Not if I have anything to say about it" Rose protested with a scowl, and the Master laughed.

"You'll want to look at the camera as you make this proclamation."

"What does that even mean?" Rose said in confusion, looking all around.

"No, seriously, you're on telly. You and your little band – which, by the way, is ticking every demographic box. So, congratulations on that."

"Public enemies number one, two and three, I guess?"

The Master cackled. "I'd have let little Miss Jones go, but you decided to get her involved."

"Like you'd have left her alone" Rose said with a scowl. "You aren't that noble, are you?"

"Noble?" There was a note of delight in the Master's voice, now. "Noble. As in, Donna Noble."

"Are you going to be hunting every single person in connection with my travels?" Rose asked in an exasperated tone.

"No plans for her" the Master replied off-handedly. "Most important creature in the Universe for some reason, I'm not playing with _that_. I'm not an idiot; she'll stay safe and secure until her purpose becomes clear."

"So you sensed that too" Rose said darkly.

"One of a few points we have in common" the Master replied, and then his voice turned harsh. "Don't get her involved. This little matter is between you and I."

"I feel flattered" Rose said sarcastically. "The high and mighty Time Lord acknowledges me as a worthy adversary."

"I'm not a fool." The Master's tone turned surprisingly complimenting. "You're a human who somehow survived getting infused with Huon particles and can withstand the Time Vortex, and has managed to learn to pilot a TARDIS and to travel through time and space without causing any catastrophic mishaps. I had to nudge you a couple of times, but that's because your simple, scattered human brain could never have learned in two years what Time Lords learn in decades of intense study. It's almost a shame you aren't Gallifreyan. Given proper education, you might even have made a good foil for a proper Time Lord."

"I'm not mating with you to restart your species" Rose growled, and the Master chortled.

"That's a good one! Wouldn't work, and even if it could, it doesn't matter anyway. I've already got a second set of Time Lord genes ready for looming."

"The Doctor's spare hand" Rose breathed.

"Exactly."

Jack grabbed the blonde woman by the shoulder, and she yelped with fright. "Don't do that!"

"Sorry Rosie, but we've got to run" Jack said, grabbing the phone and shutting it down after a quick "See ya!"

"Where are we going?" Martha asked as the group got going.

"Torchwood hideouts are out" Jack replied grimly, "but they're not all I have. Good thing about living for a couple of centuries: you've got more than enough time to set up hiding places."

* * *

One of Jack's old hiding places turned out to be a derelict warehouse. The place was rundown, humid and let in far more air currents than Martha was comfortable with when she was clad in slippers, PJs and a coat too large for her. Not that the medical student would have been comfortable to begin with. Her family were either hunted or already caught, she couldn't try and contact them any further without risking a call being traced, no matter who lent her their phone, and Captain Harkness refused to let her do anything with the laptop he'd retrieved from one of his stashes – Torchwood protected, he'd said, which was why he felt safe enough navigating the Internet with it searching for as much information as he could about Harold Saxon.

Finally, some time after nightfall, the third member of the band returned – with clothes and warm food she'd somehow acquired. Rose was the most wanted target of the Master, but he had his hands full with Downing Street and setting up his "first contact" for the following morning, leaving the young lady with a time sense at a distinct advantage where it came to anticipating enemy movements, something she'd put to good use.

"Even got a little bit of snooping around done" Rose was now explaining to a Martha that felt much warmer in suitable clothing and eating warm chips, "and can you stop doing that? It's kind-of creepy."

"Stop doing what?" Martha asked.

"It's a plastic container, not a drum" Rose replied, looking at the other woman's fingers, which had been tapping on the disposable bowl for her chips. "I swear, every other person I've come across since this afternoon has been doing that."

"Doing what?" Jack said from where he sat.

"That four-beat rhythm you all seem to be engrossed in beating with your fingers and feet – stop that!" she added; the Captain's foot had been beating.

"I don't do it on purpose" Jack said grumpily. "Nobody paid attention to you?"

"Ever notice how people don't tend to notice the TARDIS or its keys?" Rose asked in reply, and Jack nodded in response. "Well, that got me to thinking – that and how nearly everybody nowadays has a phone, and they connect through Archangel. Attach one of the TARDIS keys to a mobile phone so it broadcasts the perception filter signals through that satellite network, and nobody carrying a device which connects through Archangel really pays attention to the person carrying the mobile and key."

"So how come we can see you clearly, then?" Martha inquired, and Rose smiled faintly.

"Switched off my phone." She retrieved the device from her pocket. "Here, I'll show you. The two of you, try and point at me."

"Oh, this is going to be a good one" Jack said from where he sat. Then he frowned, trying to force himself to see. "Now that's weird" he said, turning his look to Martha, who returned a puzzled glance.

"Wasn't Rose here a moment ago?"

"She's still here" Jack replied pensively, "just not where I can see. It's like she were at the corner of my eyes."

"Actually, she's right behind you" Martha said, and Jack turned to spot Rose surprisingly close to him, holding her phone and grinning.

"Don't do that" Jack said, and she snickered.

"Now you know how annoying that is."

"Very funny" Jack replied tartly. "And congratulations, your little gadget works. Shame it's going to stop us from interacting with one another at all."

"I've thought about that" Rose replied, walking back towards Martha. "Actually, all I need to do is link a TARDIS key to your phones – I bought one for you, Martha, you can give Jack's back now, or even better hand it over to me. Where was I? Ah, yes. The keys. They're part of the TARDIS, they'll recognize each other and they'll be able to find me."

"The Master will also be able to find us" Jack remarked, and Rose sighed.

"One step at a time. And even if he can see us, he's going to have fun having to prove anybody else there's something to see at all and he hasn't gone barmy." Rose turned her attention to Martha, and smiled apologetically as she held out her hand. "I'm sorry, giving you a TARDIS key should have been a far more momentous occasion, especially with you being the first I give one to and all."

"Nothing's going as it should be right now" Martha replied nervously. Her face was rife with worry. "I was doing it again. Tapping my fingers, I mean."

"Something's making you people do that alright" Rose said, walking off with Jack's phone and heading to set up a makeshift workspace for herself. "I have no idea why it's not affecting others – children and the elderly seem mostly unaffected. And I'm not doing it either, but nearly every person my age is."

"Martha's stopped" Jack remarked, and a huff came from Rose's workspace. "No, I'm serious, she's all focused on you and she isn't drumming like she was one minute ago in the same circumstances."

"I'm not" Martha concurred. And then it clicked for her. "Oh my God. It's the phone. I stopped doing that the moment I let go of the phone."

Rose stared at the young woman, then at Jack, whose foot was tapping again. "Jack, toss over your other phone."

"I don't have another phone" Jack replied. Martha deflated.

"Sorry. Thought I'd found out what it was."

"You might have" Rose said grimly. "Jack, that laptop connects to the Internet through Archangel, doesn't it?"

"Not much choice even if you're a government agency, is there?" the man replied casually.

"Shut it down" Rose ordered, and once again, the captain complied. His tapping stopped, and the young woman let out a deep sigh. "Wonderful. Hundreds of millions, possibly billions of people under a compulsion relayed through the one worldwide network of satellite controlling all of the planet's communications. We never learn, do we?"

"Learn what?" Jack asked.

"Learn not to trust the system, I suppose" Martha said quietly. "Everybody uses Archangel, there's no equivalent in the world, a bit like nearly all cars nowadays are equipped with ATMOS to reduce carbon and particle emissions."

"Or like later on everybody gets a chip installed in their brain or goes on living on the rations supplied to them and watching the reality shows on telly until they're made to participate." Rose groaned. "We're really not that bright as a species, are we?" Her sonic screwdriver whirred, and a faint rhythm of four beeps started to rise from Martha's phone. "Well, there we have it. Our Lord and Master is telling the world to beat the drums, and I've got no idea why." Rose sighed, and went on as she shut the noise down. "Mind you, he was obsessed with them to begin with, maybe he's just sharing the love."

"That's something we might want to utilise" Jack said, and Martha looked at him pensively.

"Are you per chance thinking of making Saxon look stark raving mad on live television?"

Jack grinned as he addressed Rose. "Oh, she's good!"

"Well, I'm not as good as the two of you" Rose replied, her attention focused on her work. "Care to explain to the slow one in the class?"

"Tomorrow at eight AM, Harold Saxon will be making first contact with the Toclafane live on television from the UNIT floating fortress _Valiant_ " Jack explained. Martha stepped in.

"The entire world is going to be watching that, even more people than had been watching when Neil Armstrong took the first step on the Moon. Everyone's attention will be focused on that one single event. It's a unique chance to make it look like Saxon has gone insane and seeing things that don't really exist – take control of the situation away from him."

"The Americans will also be there and already want to take charge" Jack continued. "Bush Junior wants to go out with a bang, and Saxon seems to have ruffled his feathers because he didn't really follow protocol with regards to first contact protocol. Air Force One is headed for a military landing stripe right as we speak."

"You want to take a chance tomorrow morning and create enough chaos to stop the Master from carrying through with his plans" Rose concluded, and her sonic screwdriver whirred again. A few sparks flew from Martha's new phone.

"What are you doing?" the young woman asked.

"Giving you nearly unlimited power supply" Rose replied. "At the very least enough battery to last you a couple of years."

"Why would I need such long supply?" Martha asked, visibly puzzled. Rose frowned.

"Because your new battery's serial number starts with BD-WLF" she said grimly, "and there has to be a reason. I just need to try and guess what it is."

Martha looked uncomfortably at the other woman. "Bad Wolf" she said. "Again."

"It really does keep following you" Jack added, and Rose let out a bitter chuckle.

"Sent myself a lot of messages while I was busy messing with all of time and space. You'd think I'd have given myself better clues if I'd known all along this too was going to happen. Could use a few good pointers to stop the Master right now, if I could be so kind as to tell me." Another whirr of the sonic screwdriver, then Rose snapped Martha's phone shut. "There. All done." The young woman made to hand over the device to its owner, but Martha was clearly reluctant to take it back.

"Will I start drumming the way I did again?" she asked apprehensively.

"I don't think you will" Rose replied grimly. "I just can't be sure. I think the TARDIS key will interfere, but I'm sorry, Martha, I can't make any promises. I don't actually understand how all of this works, just that it should."

The medical student reluctantly took the proffered phone and pocketed it without switching it back on. Her eyes followed Rose for a while, as the blonde woman returned to her makeshift workspace and got started on Jack's phone. "You really are in way over your head" Martha eventually said, her voice soft, laced with pity.

"I'm a none-too-bright twenty-three year old shop vendor who didn't even finish her A-levels trying to walk in the sandshoes of a nine-hundred-years old alien with extraordinary intelligence and knowledge who keeps saving the Earth from world-ending monsters time and again" Rose said bitterly, eyes staying on her work. "I'm going to fail to save it sooner or later. It just hasn't happened yet."

"But that's not stopping you, is it?" Martha replied softly. Rose looked up; the blonde woman's eyes were shimmering noticeably, even from a distance.

"What else can I do?" she asked, anguish seeping through her voice.

"Just keep doing what you've been doing for a while" the medical student replied. "You're the Big Bad Wolf who stands against the monsters in the dark and protects us all."

"Until I mess up and let your sister die" Rose replied darkly, and she lowered her gaze to her work again.

"Even the Doctor never expected everybody to live when he saved the world" Jack cut in. "Remember the Blitz and the rampaging nanogenes?"

"Of course I do" Rose snapped. She looked up, and blushed faintly. "I'm sorry" she said more softly. "I remember, yes."

"That's one occasion when the Doctor saved the day and everybody lived" Jack replied quietly. "You've been on countless trips with him. When the going got really that tough, how many more such times did he pull that off?"

"I don't know" Rose said waspishly. "Many times, more times than I managed at any rate."

"You've been wandering space and time with the Doctor for two years, and then another two years on your own" Jack said. "Count the times. For him, and for you. Just try."

Rose looked at the captain, and then at Martha. Then she lowered her eyes. "The Autons killed someone" she started listing. "The tree of Cheen burned. Gwyneth gave her life, and the Slitheen killed several people."

"Not off to a very great start" Martha said tensely, and Jack made a shushing gesture.

"The Dalek killed dozens, and people died both times on Satellite Five. Workers died in Cardiff. Then the Sycorax came, and the Doctor changed." Rose's voice trailed over the next words. "They all died. Nothing really changed. On New Earth, more people died. Queen Victoria's guards. Students at Deffry Vale School. So many people fell to Lumic's Cybermen. Magpie was killed by the Wire. The Ood all died, and took several others with them. All but two of LINDA died." Rose's face lit up, and her voice turned wistful. "No one died with the Isolus. We saved them all."

"That's one time. Go on" Jack prompted.

"There's no need to go on" Rose replied quietly. "Canary Wharf happened after that. So many people died. I lost the Doctor. And then it was my turn to lose people."

"Not true" Martha protested. "On New Earth, everybody lived."

Rose shook her head. "The Face sacrificed himself. The Racnoss killed HC Clements, and the Judoon killed someone on the Moon. The Pharaoh took seven lives. Lazarus took many more. The Carrionites took Sally Sparrow." She looked at Jack. "We've just lost Chantho, and perhaps others taken by the Futurekind. And before that were the Weeping Angels, and…"

Rose didn't continue. It was Martha who spoke up. "Everyone lived, didn't they?"

"Sort-of" Rose replied. "Florence Nightingale and Billy Shipton got taken out of their timeline, and I couldn't bring either of them back. But I suppose they both lived a long life."

"I think it counts" Jack said firmly. "What do you think, Martha?"

"It counts" the student promptly answered, and Jack returned his attention to Rose.

"See? Score is one all, and it really should be two. You're not doing so bad."

"Nobody died when we went to visit Hippocrates either, but I don't think she counts that" Martha added, and Jack let out a whistle.

"Took a med student to see Hippocrates? Nice idea. And everybody lived?"

"Not just that, Rose did the impossible" Martha supplied, "transformed a dragon back into a young woman."

"That was the TARDIS, not really me" Rose mumbled. "And you gave us the idea."

"Like you never helped your Doctor" Martha shot back. "You saved a world for him twice, I remember, including that one time with the Isolus when everybody lived. And how many more times are you on?"

"I always had help, every time" Rose protested.

"And so did the Doctor" Jack replied. "You helped him, many times. I should know, I was there for some of it. And I'm betting you're not counting that time you took the Time Vortex into yourself and saved the entire universe from the Daleks when the rest of us were beaten."

"I only wanted to help" Rose mumbled. "I didn't want to let you all just die."

"Exactly" Jack said in a tone that brooked no discussion. "When it matters, you never run off. You take a stand. You do what's right. Not everyone lives all the time, but you save many, many more people than you fail to save. But you never count those lives, do you?"

Rose did not reply. It was Martha who spoke up. "She never does. Even now, she's trying to do something against a completely impossible opponent who rules all of Britain and is about to take over the world. And she's going to somehow find a way to beat him, maybe with our help, maybe without it, but the one thing she's not doing is giving up."

Both medical student and captain fixed their eyes on the blonde woman who held her head down, eyes closed, keeping her silence. The tremor of her shoulders, however, said enough.

"I know there's a lot of pressure on your shoulders right now" Jack said calmly, "but that's what you've got us for. We're not your family, and we haven't been friends for all that long, but you are _not_ alone."

"I know" Rose murmured.

"I'm even willing to bet this Donna Noble of yours has been trying to call, hasn't she?" Jack added, and Rose looked at him briefly, guilt painted on her face.

"I can't get her involved" she said quietly. "We can't get her involved. The Master and I are even agreed on that – no matter what happens, Donna is the most important woman in the entire universe. She's got to live."

Martha spoke up again. "And we're not involving her. But that doesn't mean you can't talk to a friend."

Rose looked at Martha, then at Jack, her eyes still glistening.

"Call her" Jack said simply. "We'll be in the back."

The pair walked away, giving a now openly weeping Rose some space. With a shaking hand, the blonde girl took out her phone and switched it back on, and entered Donna's number. The redhead picked up almost instantly.

"Spacegirl, where are you?" Donna asked frantically. "They've shown you on television, you're Britain's most wanted criminal and they said a United Nations Intelligence Taskforce is even looking for you!"

"Donna?" Rose choked, and instantly the other woman's tone changed.

"Oh my God, Rose. Is there any way I can help?"

If Donna had any words after that, they were lost to the young woman as she broke down completely, hugging the phone to her forehead and bawling. Donna's voice was still there, though, reassuring, comforting, saying platitudes, reminding Rose of how much she'd helped her friend when her marriage to Lance had come crashing down around her, and on the same day the young woman had suffered a terrible loss too.

Eventually, Rose quieted down, and her tears dried up. She excused herself for a moment, blowing her nose before she picked her phone back up, staying silent, searching for words, not finding them. Until-

"Donna?"

"I'm here, Spacegirl."

"Donna, I'm scared."

"I know" the other woman said soothingly. "But I also know it will be alright."

Rose sniffed. "How could you know?"

"Because you're Rose Tyler" Donna replied. "The mad woman in a blue box who rescued me on the day of my wedding and saved the entire world. And because I'm your friend. And I'm here for you. Just tell me everything you need to let out."

Donna wasn't there to notice, and Jack, lacking a counter to the perception filter on Rose's activated phone, just returned to his research without paying much attention to the last occupant of the warehouse. But Martha Jones had activated her phone, letting her notice what was going on with Rose Tyler as the blonde woman talked and poured her soul to her friend on the phone, and went on to speak for hours about what had happened to her.

The medical student found herself a quiet corner, well within earshot of the time traveller, and settled herself to listen to the tales and worries and the fears of a wisp of a woman who was also the formidable Bad Wolf, who had created herself and spread the words to lead herself on her path. And long after that call ended and Rose had gone on to rest for a few fitful hours, Martha Jones pondered about all she'd heard, and as she kept pondering and putting things together, she finally understood what needed to be done and how to unleash the Bad Wolf upon the Master. And that was why she left the warehouse in the dead of night, leaving behind a note explaining she had gone to seek and protect Donna Noble, and inviting the pair to go after the Master without her…

* * *

The first time Rose had taken the Time Vortex into herself to activate Jack's broken manipulator, she'd gone unconscious from the strain. This time around, as the pair rematerialized on the _Valiant_ , the young woman wished it had gone the same way. Instead, she stiffened as she felt a powerful sense of pain and anguish coming from within a very familiar blue box with an interior completely transformed in nightmarish fashion – the Doctor's TARDIS, bathed in blood-red light and tolling a mournful bell as she kept toiling on with the purpose the Master had set for her.

"Oh, my poor old girl, what is holding this paradox together doing to you?"

"Putting her through excruciating pain, a never-ending agony" said a voice Rose Tyler had never expected to hear then and there.

Heels clacked on the TARDIS' floor as a woman's figure emerged from behind the contraptions trapping the time rotor – somehow familiar, except she, too, looked like she had been twisted and altered, her hairless head held together in metal casing, her eyes, her mouth and the holes in her cheeks leaking trails of rich gold motes that faded in the air. And the figure was holding a laser gun in each of her hands.

"Hello, sweetheart" Professor Song said pleasantly. "You're late."

"River Song" Rose whispered, horrified. "What has the Master done to you?"

"What he will do to you" the woman replied. She made an imperious motion, and the door of the TARDIS opened, letting soldiers in UNIT uniform, armed to the teeth, stride in. Jack jumped into action, trying to interpose himself; but he crumpled with a cry of pain as Professor Song gunned him down.

"No!" Rose cried out. She knew that Jack would be alright, but she also knew they were caught, and didn't need the soldiers roughly taking hold of her and restraining her to remind her, nor did she need the patronizing look from the ravaged and faintly glowing face of River.

"He knew you'd come" the modified woman said with a light smirk. "The Master's known for a very long time that all he had to do was threaten your world and you'd come running, even if you couldn't have the beginning of a proper plan to stop him. Throw in an affinity with the TARDIS, which all but ensured you'd appear here if you ever tried to come close to him as his plans unfolded, and you never had a chance."

"River, this is not you" Rose said, her voice shaking as she forced herself to look into the other woman's eyes. "We've only met the once, but I know you're a good person, and I know you love the Doctor."

"There isn't a Doctor" the Professor said in a deceptively benign voice. "He died on the twenty-second of April in 1969, at five-oh-two PM British Standard Time. And I believe you were seen there." The woman had a chilling smile. "That is the crime you're wanted for, after all."

"I didn't kill the Doctor" Rose replied quietly. "I couldn't kill the Doctor."

"Not as you are now, certainly, sweetheart, but take a good look at me and tell me you can't be made capable of it."

Rose tried to reply, but her protest died in her throat when the older woman leaned closer, giving the blonde woman a clear view of the lattice of distortions and scars underneath the metal and around the openings, the results of the Master's work on this person Rose hardly knew, but already understood would become terribly important to her.

"I can hear you caring" the twisted River murmured, her amusement plain. The older woman stepped away again. "You see, this is exactly why the Master knew you'd never actually be a match for him. The Doctor could be ruthlessly efficient and put aside all his concerns when necessity called, but you? Not quite. You care. You always care, you care too much, and while it means a few more lives saved than might otherwise have been, it also means you were always going to overextend someday, and to fall, and to fail all those whose lives depended on you. And do you know why you were always going to fail?"

Rose didn't reply. She didn't need to. She knew what the other woman was going to say, and she dreaded hearing it. But she would have to all the same, and it pained her to see just how much pleasure this woman from her future seemed to be taking in torturing her with just a few words, sealing her absolute defeat against the Master.

"You were always going to fail, sweetheart, because you are Rose Tyler."

And such were the words which heralded the start of the second worst period in the young woman's existence.

* * *

 **A/N:** Just one chapter left in "season three", which I'm likely to take a bit of time writing, as it will be one that will be setting a "fixed point" for quite a bit later on, which will mean writing a good portion of the ending of "season four" in parallel, as it specifically regards the fate of one Donna Noble, about which I'm still not entirely decided, meta-crisis or otherwise.

 **TheDoctorMulder** , thanks for the review and the kind words. And also, spoilers!

 **Asteria25** , thanks to you for the series of comments, they were very welcome. And I will at the very least say we'll return to the Library – this is why Rose has already been introduced to the Vashta Nerada, as a matter of fact.

So, Jodie Whittaker. For the purposes of this story, I really like having her around, although actually watching her play the Doctor will be nice to have an idea of how to write Thirteen, because at this point I can only write Thirteen from House MD, which doesn't really help here. Also, I'm back to being older than the actor playing the Doctor. Arg!


	14. XII - The Story of a Bad Wolf

**A/N:** The unfairness of not owning Doctor Who makes me want to howl. Aouwww!

A note of **warning** : this chapter involves psychological torture, non-explicit physical torture and human experimentation. If any of those themes disturb you, consider skipping the passages located on the Valiant, except the one concerning Day 366. All are explicitly marked at the beginning, and a separating line marks their end.

* * *

 _Chiswick. Day 1 of the Last Year_.

* * *

"Remove one tenth of the population." That was the first act in the Master's reign of terror, celebrating his advent, and the culling by the Toclafane of more than six hundred million lives went much, much faster than it had any right to have gone, and it demonstrated just how nobody was safe anywhere on Earth. Nobody, to the exception of Martha Jones, protected by a perception filter, and Donna Noble, who had stood up between one of the deadly spheres and her ailing father and forced the only backing down by one of the Master's servants, to Martha's admiration. Whatever else could be said about the caustic redhead, she couldn't be accused of lacking courage.

It also came at the cost of knowing beyond any doubt that Donna was singled out as the one person on Earth the Master did not want to kill, putting what one Rose Tyler had told her only a few weeks back into a completely different perspective, and not a comforting one to mull over. The steaming cups of tea Donna had prepared were of little comfort, and not just because it was difficult to feel comfortable inside a sitting room that was missing most of its outer wall, blasted off when the Toclafane had forced their way inside the house. No, the concerns nursed by the two women and the old man seated around the table were bigger than a toppled wall, and they could be summed up in one word Donna uttered in a broken voice.

"Why?"

Her grandfather Wilf heaved a long sigh. "There's never really an answer" he said heavily. "Just a madman somewhere who thinks they should kill lots of people because they can."

"Well, at least, in the wars you've known, you actually stood a chance" Donna said bitterly. "Now it feels like we have none."

"It also felt like we had none, back in 1940" her grandfather replied. "We did like Churchill said, we never surrendered. And we did win in the end. The Nazis were the ones that lost."

"We can't even fight" Donna let trail.

"I don't think we have to" Martha said quietly, interjecting herself in the conversation.

"We're occupied, lass" Donna's grandfather pointed out. "The whole world's occupied. It's not just down to the army anymore, we've got to find a way to do our part."

"I think I have one" Martha replied. "It's a long shot, a very long one, but I think we have a chance. All we need to do is send a message."

"Send a message to whom?" Donna said acidly. "Is there some kind of intergalactic rescue agency somewhere that actually does something, unlike those useless people of the Shadow Proclamation?"

"The what?" Wilf said, astonished.

"You know what it is?" Martha asked Donna.

"Only that they're somehow in charge of intergalactic law and order, and that we're supposed to be on a protected planet. Level five, I think Rose said we were, whatever that means."

"So someone _is_ supposed to come and stop the Master" Wilf said hopefully. His good humour was marred by Donna's snort.

"They're not going to do anything. As far as they're concerned, one human just took the planet over, that's all it is."

"There's someone else who will come" Martha said calmly.

"Who is it, then?"

"The Bad Wolf."

Donna levelled a disturbed look at the medical student. "Dearie, in case you missed it, the Master just made a point of showing the whole world that Rose Tyler is his prisoner."

"Rose is his prisoner" Martha said with a nod. "That's not who I meant, I said the Bad Wolf. The one being that can travel throughout all of time and space, following the words like they follow her. You've heard what the Bad Wolf is capable of, Rose told you."

"I heard alright" Donna shot back. "I also know that _she_ spread the words she needed to follow, she didn't answer anybody's call aside from hers."

"I know" Martha replied. "But the Bad Wolf is still Rose, and Rose does not ignore distress calls, not when she can hear them."

"Then how? How are we supposed to reach her?"

Martha laid down her now switched-off phone on the table. "Archangel."

Donna stared at the medical student. "A telephone network? How is that supposed to help?"

"It's a lot more than just a telephone network. Archangel's been used to exercise some form of mind control over all of us. I don't understand how that works, but anybody using a device that's connected to Archangel is linked mentally to that network. Now imagine if tens of millions of people, all linked together through Archangel, started thinking the same two words and repeating them in their heads at the same moment – a huge signal, carried by and resonating through and amplified by the Master's very own network. Don't you think the Bad Wolf might hear that?"

Martha's idea was at first met by stunned silence. Then Wilf began to laugh, softly at first, then heartily, while his granddaughter's face lit up with a huge grin.

"That could work" Donna said enthusiastically. "So many people all calling at once, there's no way Spacegirl would ignore that."

Martha's eyes widened. "Spacegirl?"

Donna shrugged. "Timegirl just sounds silly."

"I think I still prefer 'Bad Wolf'."

"Rose doesn't" Donna replied soberly. "I think she's a little afraid of being Bad Wolf. What she'd really like to be is Rose Tyler, traveling across all of time and space with the Doctor."

"Doctor who?" Wilf asked.

"Just the Doctor, Gramps." Donna sighed. "It's a long story."

"Do you know it?" Martha asked, and the red-haired woman shook her head.

"Not that one. Rose herself said she only knows a small part of it."

"It's okay." Martha smiled faintly. "I don't think it matters all that much, it's really the Bad Wolf the people of this Earth need to learn about.

"And learn of how she saved this world several times" Wilf said with a small smile of his own. "Donna, darling, you and I should try and fetch the neighbours, shouldn't we?"

"Do you seriously think mum wouldn't go ballistic having her house full of strangers at a time like this?"

"Don't worry about your mother, lass. In fact I think it'll do her good to listen to the young lady here with the rest of us."

Martha's eyes widened. "Listen to me?"

Wilf smiled encouragingly. "Well, gotta start to tell your stories sometime, and there's no time like the present, is there?"

"I suppose there isn't."

Wilf patted Martha on the shoulder. "Just you stay there and think about what you're gonna say. We'll be back before you know it."

By the time grandfather and granddaughter returned, the tea Donna had made had long since gone cold, but it was no great issue. Thirty-odd people crammed into the Nobles' living room, most of them in just as much despair as Donna's mother was, but a few of them had brought thermoses of tea and coffee and some biscuits, which were passed around and shared by the little huddle of humanity gathered there. And their assemblage, the bereaved of one street in Chiswick, were the first who listened to Martha Jones' story, tales to offer them a glimmer of hope, and a message to pass on along with the story, for the appointed day. The story of a Bad Wolf.

* * *

 **Doctor Who – Walk a Mile in the Doctor's Sandshoes  
XII. The Story of a Bad Wolf**

* * *

 _The Valiant. Day 5 of the Last Year._

* * *

A long time ago, yet just a few years back, the Doctor had told Rose Tyler a little about why it had been necessary to end the Time War; about how the Time Lords themselves had turned out to be just as terrible as the Daleks. And until just a few days earlier, a part of Rose's mind had refused to accept the notion. After all, the one Time Lord she knew had become the centre of her world, and it was hard to imagine others of his species being every bit the monsters the Daleks were. It had been so easy to doubt the notion, knowing only the Doctor.

No more. No more doubts. A few days with the Master had taken care of those; here was an absolutely brilliant being who was also a complete egomaniac and made the Dalek Emperor himself pass off as a paragon of good in comparison. And the scope of his ambitions defied imagination. The Daleks, at least, would have contented themselves with exterminating every other form of life in every time and every dimension and rule over all of physical creation.

The Master's ambition went far beyond that. Not only did the Time Lord want to rule over every sentient being that ever existed, he wanted to twist and bend the very rules of time itself to his own will – a trait he had no shame in admitting to sharing with many Time Lords, including the first among them all.

"This is why I got very interested in your friend Professor Song in the first place" the Master said with a grin as he stood in front of a Rose Tyler firmly clamped to the walls of her cell. "Such a nice little gift you brought to me when you left her behind in Southwark cathedral. Human girl, but conceived during time travel, probably by some silly Time Agents who didn't have the faintest idea of what they were literally about to give birth to. But me? Nonononono, I understood immediately. A human, but infused with the same kind of time energies us Time Lords were exposed to over billions of years living close to an opening in the Vortex. She even _feels_ almost like a Time Lord. Still, not halfway as interesting as you, little wolf" he added, laying a clammy finger on Rose's cheek.

"You called her Bad Wolf 2.0" the young woman said in a hoarse voice, strained by days spent held aloft in a very uncomfortable position.

"Oh yes" the Master said with another grin, stepping away in a whirl. "I should thank whoever did work on her for the idea; it was an excellent one, trying to manufacture a sentient, living device capable of tapping into the Time Vortex. Bit shameful that the people who handled her modifications really had no clue of what they were doing beyond implementing halfway decent mind control. On the whole, I'd say Professor Song is a very poor imitation of the original; can't even properly contain the Time Vortex, in spite of her body being already infused with time energies I almost lost her after six seconds of activation."

Rose watched the Time Lords with an expression of horror. "They didn't- you didn't!"

"They didn't know what they were doing and I needed a benchmark for my own testing. Poor thing; she's still burning from the inside and probably won't live out the year. Pity. It's going to be so exciting."

"What happens in a year?" Rose forced herself to ask.

The Master step back right in front of Rose and waved an index in front of her face. "Nah-ah. You're not getting to find out what my plans are until you're actually playing your part in them."

"You didn't take that many precautions doing your little announcement on telly."

"Ah, but they don't _know_ what's going to happen in three hundred and sixty-one days, do they?" the Master replied smugly. "All they've been told is that the world as they know it will cease to exist when the countdown ends. No sense in telling anyone what your next plans are going to be, even when you have them utterly beaten. The villain's monologue is such a bad cliché in human storytelling."

"You've already told me enough for me to guess you're going to attempt to modify and mind-control me so you can control the Time Vortex through me" Rose said as fiercely as she could manage.

"Of course I did. Same reason you're held in an upright uncomfortable position and fed through skin interface and kept on minimal sleep in a completely hermetic white padded cell that isolates you entirely from the outside world whenever I close the door. No sound, no smell, no food, nothing to see or touch, psychic dampeners cutting you off from the outside world, no real stimuli, no actual rest, nothing but yourself. The only thing you have to hang onto is your mind – and a rudimentary time sense that makes sensory deprivation a little less effective." The Master's voice turned sickeningly sweet. "Can't you think of a reason why I would interrupt your isolation and all but announce that I intend to perform some entirely experimental and very gruesome vivisection and brain surgery removing any possibility for self-control and turning you into a willing slave, all part of a process of turning you into the weapon that will give me complete mastery over the very fabric of time and space and kill and enslave trillions of trillions of trillions of sentient beings?"

Rose could think of one. And even though she knew what the Master was trying to accomplish here, it was working. She was frightened, and even worse, she was frightened that in spite of knowing what was being done to her and why, she was still frightened. She refused, however, to give the Master the satisfaction of knowing it w-

"Of course you know" the Master said quietly, his smile now falsely benign. "You _are_ quite brilliant for a human – though I suppose it may be because a small part of your head is really more TARDIS than human." His voice lowered to a murmur. "You know what's going to happen, and because you're a very brave soul you're trying to fight your fear and fight me, all the while knowing it's going to work, and you're going to get broken in the end. And that is when I will start modifying you."

The Master turned and made his way to the white room's exit, halting in the doorway. "That's the only thing you'll have to look forward to for some months" he said calmly. "Enjoy the thought."

The door closed and seemed to vanish, now looking just like another part of the padding of the walls, cutting Rose off completely once more from the exterior world. Small consolation: her time sense _would_ allow her to mark precisely the passage of time spent inside her cell.

Which really wasn't that much of a consolation.

* * *

 _Berlin. Day 29 of the Last Year._

* * *

It was on days like this one, bleak and dreary, that Martha Jones was reminded of the difficulty of the task she had set for herself, that night in the warehouse, as she'd listened to Rose talking to Donna on her phone, to the blonde woman sharing some of her stories and worries with her friend while trying to find in herself the courage to confront the Master. Obviously, things had not gone to plan for Rose and Jack, and that was one of the obstacles Martha had to contend with when she tried to spread the word about the Bad Wolf – so many people had seen Rose beaten live on television.

"But not defeated" Martha said in a determined voice to the assemblage seated around her in a cellar damp with moisture seeping from the nearby Spree.

"She looked just like any other scared gal her age" one of the men present protested. "What good can she be? Nobody can do anything against the Master and his Toclafane! What good is a frightened little girl going to be?"

Martha was at a loss to respond. There were times like this one, every now and then, when doubt and despair won, and she'd have to go on having failed, and this time looked like she'd lose another audience. Not everyone was so fascinated by the stories of the Bad Wolf traveling through time and space that they could reconcile her with the blonde woman they'd seen held captive by the Master.

Then rescue came from the last place Martha would have expected it to come from – specifically, help came from a teenage girl, seated with an arm looked protectively around her younger sister, who spoke quietly. "She was scared that other time too" the girl said. "She still saved us."

Martha stood abruptly and made her way to the girl. "You've met with Rose."

"Me and my sister did" the younger of the two girls said. "She saved our lives when we were in Egypt two months ago. Anna talked a lot to her." The younger's eyes lit up. "She was so cool, she convinced all those terrorists to help us just like that, and when their leader tried to run away she jumped off the back of the truck and caught her and then she made a blue box appear out of thin air around the leader to capture her. I saw it. It was real."

"And then the box disappeared again, and Rose reappeared three days later when we were in the boarding area of the Cairo airport" Anna said fondly. "She was scared, and she was trying to hide it so I would feel better. She promised she'd do our best to save her lives, and she did. Then she told me about the time she was on the Weakest Link. I'm not sure that story was true; I looked up on the Internet and she wasn't in any list of participants."

Martha had her first truly happy laugh in a month. "That's because she was on the show in the year two hundred thousand one hundred."

"No. Way." the younger girl said, and Martha grinned at her.

"Yes, way. Rose is a time traveller, and that's the same night she became the Bad Wolf. Would you like to hear that story?"

The little girl did, and her older sister did; and the rest of Martha's present audience, as it turned out. And that night, Martha realised that Rose had been travelling for a good while and had touched the lives of many people on Earth, who already had a reason to believe and to make others believe. She did feel a little guilty when she asked the teenage girl and her kid sister if they, too, would spread the word about the Bad Wolf, but neither Anna nor Corinna really minded, and the older of the two sisters told her why: "That way, I can try and be brave like Rose Tyler."

There were worse role models to try and emulate in this world.

* * *

 _The Valiant. Day 55 of the Last Year._

* * *

"What is your plan?"

Every now and then, the Master's voice would pop from one of the walls of Rose's prison; sometimes to taunt; sometimes to offer false reassurance; sometimes, like now, to question.

"You know I'm going to find out eventually, little wolf" the voice said with clear annoyance. "It's all in your head."

"It's not in my head" Rose replied hoarsely. "I never had the chance to make a plan."

"Lying again, tssk tssk. Maybe you'd be a little more motivated if I destroyed another city – perhaps one that is a little more populated, this time? It seems showing you Mercy did little to motivate you."

"You didn't exactly show mercy for Mercy" Rose growled.

"Nice of you to play along, little wolf." The Master's voice grew impatient. "Now, where did you send Martha Jones?"

"I told you already, she said she was going to protect Donna."

"Miss Noble doesn't need protection from me, and you know that, and you know why."

"Doesn't change what Martha said" Rose hissed. "Maybe one of your little homicidal pets killed her without you noticing and that's why you can't find out where she is."

The Master laughed; the sound made the young woman shiver.

"Oh, Rose Tyler, you have no idea what the Toclafane are, do you?" the Master said with cruel delight. "Poor little wolf, it would break your heart if you did, I think" he said with false commiseration, before returning to cruelty. "Oh, wait a minute. I _am_ trying to break your heart, aren't I?"

The panels forming the door of Rose's prison slid open, and in hovered one of the terrible spheres that enforced the Master's dictates on Earth. The door shut behind the metal sphere, and for a moment the only sounds in the cell were Rose's heavy breathing and the quiet hum of the machinery which kept the sphere afloat in the air. Then-

"You said your ship could take us to Utopia" the Toclafane said in a distorted voice, metallic and childish yet eerily familiar.

Rose's face was drained of all colour as she began to realize just what the Master had done. "The end of the universe" she breathed. "You were there, a hundred trillion years in the future, at the end of the universe."

"You said your ship could take us to Utopia" the Toclafane repeated. "Why did you lie to us?"

"I didn't lie, I thought there could be a Utopia" Rose forced herself to say, her heart feeling heavy in her chest. "I thought there was some hope. And I helped you leave the planet you were stuck on; your rocket flew towards Utopia."

"There was nothing there" the sphere replied, and its voice turned accusatory. "Why did you lie? Why did you say your ship could take us to Utopia?"

Rose's heart felt even heavier with the realization of who she was talking to. "You were one of the guards at the fence. Jack stopped you and described the TARDIS to you, and you asked if she could take you…"

Something clicked, and the sphere split into two halves, opening and revealing a grotesquely distorted and half-mummified human head, trapped in what looked like an excruciatingly torturous contraption that had to serve both as interface and life support system.

"Why did you lie?" the head inside the sphere asked again. "Why did you say your ship could take us to Utopia?"

And on, and on, and again, and again, and many more times did the lost soul of the one hopeful guard turned into a Toclafane repeat those two questions, and none of the replies Rose managed in spite of her anguish and amidst her running tears stopped the questions from returning, but she kept trying. She kept trying for hours, for long enough to lost all sense of time, until exhaustion caught up with her and she slid into unconsciousness, murmuring barely coherent apologies.

Hours later, Rose woke up with a sense of disorientation, feeling exhausted, yet roused from her sleep by a childish voice that talked to her, sounding like it asked something it wanted to-

"No…"

The Toclafane was still there. The sphere was still open. The questions were the same.

"Why did you lie? Why did you say your ship could take us to Utopia?"

Rose screamed.

* * *

 _The Valiant. Day 56 of the Last Year._

* * *

Unbeknownst to Rose, it was quite easy to look at what was happening inside her cell from the outside; one of the side walls offered a transparent view from the outside, and this was where, every now and then, the mutilated Professor Song found herself drawn to without really being able to explain it. Well, she could explain, it was all in her head and she knew all one needed to know about Rose Tyler and about why the woman was so important to her, and she also knew she was not supposed to care one bit about the Master's most precious prisoner – she'd been reprogrammed not to care, and it was not the first time in her life; it was the fourth time.

And yet she kept coming back there, standing in silence for hours outside of the blonde woman's cell and watching, invariably when the Bad Wolf girl's control over her emotions slipped and she fell into despair or anguish or, like presently, into sheer terror. Every time, River responded, when she knew she really wasn't supposed to.

"A couple of lifetimes caring deeply for someone will do that to a human" said a voice behind River – the voice of her Master. "Don't turn around, you can keep watching" it added nonchalantly.

The latter wasn't really an order, but River was compelled to do the former, and she did keep watching, because she felt the need to, even if she wasn't really supposed to.

"Fascinating, isn't she?" the Master commented. "Right now she looks completely terrified, and she feels it, but before long, she's going to grasp onto a tiny little detail somewhere in there or inside her head that will give her focus, and she will process it, and I'll have to move on to the next method of torture. It's like I'm having to chip away bit by bit at the sky trenches above Gallifrey, including the bit about fighting their regenerative properties. She's scared, she's powerless, she knows she's scared and powerless, and every time, little Miss Tyler finds something and goes on."

"Master, in all the years I've known her, I don't think I remember her giving up once" Professor Song replied matter-of-factly, knowing she would normally have felt emotion but finding it was strangely absent.

"Oh yes, you've known her for a while in the reality that never has existed" the Master said smugly. Then his tone turned stern. "Not known her nearly as much as I would have liked, nor the Doctor. I keep tripping on situations from before I activated the Paradox machine, when the Doctor or the Bad Wolf found nothing better to do than travel back to the past, in times and places I can't get to – that's how I know the little wolf has a plan, I'm being blocked from events yet to happen farther in her timeline and in the Doctor's that I should be needing to fix and compensate for and you, Professor Song, are proving remarkably unhelpful in helping me identify in what way this little, clumsily modified human girl struggling against impossible odds is supposed to beat said odds."

"You've got a piece of paradoxical genetic material from the Doctor and are detaining the Bad Wolf in the cell right here, Master, you've got all you need to access both their futures" Professor Song said neutrally. "All you need to do is break her and reconstruct enough of him."

"Oh." A pause, during which the Master first looked at his servant with surprise, which gradually turned into an expression of delight. "Oh, oh, oh! This, this is brilliant, absolutely brilliant! Almost worth the frustrations of having you under my control for months and having to put hours upon hours of effort for every little secret I try and extract from your pretty misshapen little head." His expression and tone turned malevolent. "Like whether the Rose Tyler you know from her future has ever said anything about how she would have managed to stop me. But I think you might just have unwittingly given me the idea that will give me what I want, Professor Song, and I happen to still have a place open in surgery, since work on Wolf 1.0 can't proceed."

The Time Lord tugged on the woman's sleeve. "Come along, Pond. We've got work to do."

River followed him.

Moments later, another woman slunk into the corridor, pushed a button on the wall, and stood in front of the transparent frame and stayed to watch.

* * *

 _Island of Kos. Day 61 of the Last Year._

* * *

Of the various trips Martha Jones had undertaken in the past ten weeks, her current one was perhaps the one least likely to contribute to her ongoing efforts. It was also a needed one, an occasion for one leg on her journey putting less pressure on her shoulders and allowing her a smidge of relaxation. Putting aside intense physical demands the young woman had not been prepared for, walking the Master's Earth basically meant touring an immense, planet-wide open-air gulag or concentration camp. Aside from privileged few who could provide services deemed useful to the maintenance of what population was still needed and to the acceleration of the gargantuan construction projects started for the Master, the vast majority of the Earth's population were prisoners in their own towns and villages, crushed under the merciless yoke of the Toclafane, who enforced a discipline where the only punishments were torture, mutilation and death.

But they were not forbidden from gathering and talking – or even from playing and partying together, for that matter. Donna's grandfather had explained to Martha why, when shortly before her departure the medical student had expressed her surprise. "He's encouraging a prisoner camp spirit" the old man had said, "like happened with my father when he was captured in the Great War. You can't take everything from men, you can't leave them entirely without hope, or they'll just stop caring and they'll throw away their lives, one way or the other. And the Master won't want to have that, you've heard him. He wants us to work for him for one year, and he can't have all of us getting so desperate we start massive revolts or we just start killing ourselves in droves. People got to have a little escape, or they just break."

And Martha herself needed a little escape, because some days, she did feel like she was going to start breaking.

Much had changed on the island of Kos since Martha had last visited, of course, said visit having happened nearly twenty-four centuries earlier, but not the feel of the wind and the smell of the sea, nor, even, the nature of the landscapes that could be overlooked from the vantage point where Rose had landed the TARDIS, so long ago and less than half a year before. The roads were more modern and the cities spread farther, but they were of the same white, and there were still grape fields spreading down the slope of the hill. The land's shape itself had changed as well; the coastlines had shifted somewhat, and what Martha remembered as a largely untouched smaller island ahead of the harbour was now the end of a peninsula, dominated by a wide ancient castle.

There were also traces of the Master's rule. The ruins of the temple of Asclepios Martha had remembered visiting were blackened and charred like they had been bombed, the castle buzzed with activity from the Master's soldiers and his Toclafane, and when Martha went back down to the city of Kos itself, it was to find out the fabled Tree of Hippocrates had been uprooted.

And then there were the traces of her own passage, like the antique vase one of the island's older inhabitants brought along when Martha gathered what people she could, like she did most evenings, to talk about the Bad Wolf.

"I used to be the curator of the Archeological Museum, before the time of the Master" the old man said as he held out the carefully cloth-wrapped object to the young woman. "When we got wind you were here in Kos, I thought I should go and fetch this for you, Martha Jones."

"How do you know who I am?" Martha asked with a bit of surprise.

"There are tales about you, getting spread ahead of your passage" the old man explained. "People say you're traveling the world on a quest to find a weapon that can defeat the Master."

"That's sort-of what I'm doing, yes" Martha said hesitantly, still in shock from the surprise. "There's tales about _me_?"

"As long as a few of us are allowed to move about, tales are going to keep spreading. The Master can never stop that from happening unless he kills us all." The curator chortled. "But there have been tales about you here on Kos for a bit longer than the past couple of weeks, although perhaps I should say myth, in your particular case, and quite the disputed one too."

Martha's eyes widened even further. "There's a myth here about _me_?"

The curator began to unwrap the vase. "There's one about a female student with black skin who was the only woman the master ever taught, and that only for three days. That story's supposed to have come from another student of Hippocrates. And then there's this" he said, and finally revealed the vase.

Once again Martha couldn't help but gape as she looked at the vase and saw a stylized, fully black representation of herself, in antique robes and holding a caduceus, standing behind a stylized figure of a female soldier holding a small rod, painted in plain white save for one barely visible gilded eye, and in front of a tall black box lined with faded gild that was unmistakably a representation of the TARDIS. The soldier, for her part, was stood opposite an upraised dragon, itself stood in front of a temple.

And the person who had painted the vase had also painted a legend, which Martha read in a whisper: "The Bad Wolf, Martha Jones, and the Vessel of the Moirai make their stand against the Dragon."

"It is said that this vase was painted by the daughter of Hippocrates herself" the curator said, smiling. "And now, you know why I've known of you for a long time, Martha Jones. It only took me a while longer than it should have to realize you were real." The old man chortled again. "But you have to admit that until recently, this sounded like quite the impossibility."

"Yeah… It would have…" Martha let trail, reminiscing about those few days spent with Hippocrates, who had once called her a healer and a warrior.

"But you are real, and standing here in the middle of us" the curator continued gravely. "And the Bad Wolf and the Vessel… They are real too, aren't they?"

Martha couldn't help a grin. This time around, she wouldn't need to work hard at all to convince her audience to listen to her, and that, too, was something that felt quite refreshing.

She started her tale. "Let me tell you the story of how a Time Lady ended up facing a dragon and saving the daughter of Hippocrates from a terrible fate, then. It begins a few months ago, as I made my way to a London hospital where I was doing my internship. A perfectly ordinary looking morning – it was raining, that's as ordinary as it gets in England, and it stopped being ordinary when I ran into the Time Lady known as the Bad Wolf, and that little blonde woman asked me, of all things, to write the day and time on her headband with a marker…"

* * *

 _The Valiant. Day 73 of the Last Year._

* * *

Rose had had to endure the presence of the former guard turned Toclafane repeating his two accusatory questions for four more days. By the end of the second day, it had become so hard on her that the questions kept following her in her dreams. By the beginning of the fourth, Rose thought she was going to go mad. And that was when she remembered Professor Yana and his obsession with the drums.

It was something new to hold onto, dum-dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-dum-dum, a rhythm of four beats which created a distraction from within Rose's own head, a false noise her altered senses allowed her to focus on and get to resonate louder and louder in her head until it drowned the voice of the Toclafane completely. And then the Master had burst into her cell, inexplicably furious, and destroyed his creature then and there with his laser screwdriver, disintegrating it entirely, leaving no trace of visage or sphere, before walking out looking every bit as angry as he had before, leaving Rose alone with her thoughts for the first time in days.

It hadn't lasted long. And the next time the Master showed up, following one night of dreaming about the drums, he was back to looking quite smug.

"I've found out why you sent Martha Jones away" he said with evident satisfaction. "From Lisboa to Archangelsk, there are people spread across the entirety of what you call Europe whispering about how your little student friend is searching for a weapon meant to destroy me. I even have a rough idea of where she should be. I'll have her captured before the week is over. Exciting, isn't it?"

Rose did her best to keep a neutral expression as she received the news – once again, thinking about the pounding of drums seemed to help. She was already certain of one thing: by design or by chance, the Master had got the story of what Martha was trying to do wrong, and the best thing to do was let him ramble. And ramble the Master did.

"Of course, you know, I could have an order issued out to exterminate every person who talks about Martha Jones, but that would be a little bit disruptive. Those shipyards aren't going to run themselves on a planet with such pitiful robotics available, and no, there is no time to remedy that, we're on a schedule."

"What's the emergency?" Rose said with a hint of sarcasm. "You're a Time Lord, you have all the time in the universe."

The Master scowled. "This resilience of yours is starting to seriously annoy me."

"Haven't got much experience breaking a Time Lady, have you?" Rose replied with a faint smirk.

The Master punched hard into Rose's gut, cutting her breath off and causing her to reflexively try and bend forward, which only resulted in hurting her ankles and wrists. Then she realized her stomach had tried to expel something she couldn't spit out, and she was now slowly choking on that substance, hiccupping and trying to cough it out and not quite succeeding. And then, all of a sudden, there was a burning sensation in her throat and lungs, and she could breathe again.

"That would have been a _waste_ " he spat. "Like what is happening currently with your dear little friend Professor Song, except that unlike you, she's expendable."

"What did you do to her?" Rose croaked.

"A graft like one I'll do to you, only I'll have to do it better because I can't afford to waste you in a failed experiment" the Master said darkly. "No, I need you alive, and I need you ready to function for a precise moment."

Rose's eyes sought the Master's fidgety ones. "River asked me once if then was a good moment to ask, but she didn't say what."

The Master smiled, but there was no warmth in his expression. "Funny she should have mentioned. That's where I found inspiration of sorts, and why I decided to capture you."

"You found inspiration in a moment" Rose said hoarsely.

The last response she would have expected from the Master was a wink. "Spoilers."

Rose was not amused.

* * *

 _The Valiant. Day 98 of the Last Year._

* * *

The Master had changed tactics again. He was determined to finally find a way of breaking Rose, but the blonde woman was beginning to think the Time Lord lacked a bit in imagination. His last few attempts at hurting Rose _had_ succeeded, but nowhere close to the point of no-return. And her jailor had found out that while Rose Tyler certainly felt a measure of guilt for the deaths of the people he'd got gruesomely executed in front of her for having assisted Martha Jones in her travels, what really got to her was that his victims all held trust in the Bad Wolf.

The consistency of that belief had unnerved the Master, and the executions in Rose's cell stopped after that, on the false pretence it was too bothersome having to clean up the grout so that the cell would be returned to its pristine condition. The young woman suspected that the Time Lord was beginning to worry about going up against the actual Bad Wolf entity – he'd let slip that he knew about what Rose had achieved on Satellite Five when she had taken in the Time Vortex. And he had, of course, witnessed Rose's transformation of every altered cell of Professor Lazarus into regular human cells and her subsequent disappearance as she'd vanished directly into the Time Vortex.

"Are you afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, Master?" Rose murmured, a little part of her hoping for an answer.

She didn't talk to herself much these days. As much as hearing the sound of her own voice could be helpful for the young woman, her recently developed penchant for soliloquy had had to be restrained to the field of inner monologues. There was simply too much the Master could find out if he paid attention to Rose's ramblings, and the young woman was quite certain he would, fishing as he was for ways of breaking her and with the clock he'd set for himself continuing to tick. It had nearly been a hundred days already. Two hundred and sixty-eight to go. That much longer to endure. Such was the extent of Rose's plan against the Master at this point – resist, refuse to give up and stay unbroken until it would be too late for… whatever the Master intended to do.

But for now, there was a long way to go. And as usual, after another failed onslaught…

"Silence will fall." A faint smile. "I rather like the sound of that. It feels… right. Silence will fall… Silence will fall…"

Then the Master had stormed inside the cell and got in Rose's face. "How did you hear these words?" he hissed, and he pressed his head on Rose's, bone grinding painfully on bone. "How did you hear them?"

"I spoke them aloud, and I heard myself speak" Rose replied hoarsely, with a clear note of defiance.

"Spare me the little act of rebellion" the Master spat. "How did you hear these words? What do they mean?"

"They mean that every now and then you go away" Rose hissed.

The Master backed off, forcing himself to regain his composure. "You don't know the meaning" he eventually said, his voice now calm.

"I don't."

"That's a bit of a shame, they're the last words of little wolf 2.0 and she wanted them relayed to you, tell Rose silence will fall, and I really, really, really want to know what that means."

"And I keep telling you I. Don't. Know" Rose growled. "She's from my future, how the hell am I supposed to be able to guess?"

The Master looked at Rose in silence for a moment. Then he gave her a cold smile. "Good point."

He walked out. And silence fell, but the thought was no longer comforting for Rose Tyler.

* * *

 _Karachi. Day 102 of the Last Year._

* * *

Unlike most countries on Earth, Pakistan had been a nuclear power. Unlike most nuclear powers on Earth, when the Master had taken over, they had tried to make use of that power. The price extracted of the country's population for that had been gruesome. Thirty-one nuclear warheads had been fired to attempt to obliterate the _Valiant_ from the skies; in retaliation, the Master had ordered a decimation of the country to be executed thirty-one more times. An example made to terrify the rest of the world into not attempting anything of the kind, and it had worked. Nobody else tried to fire another nuclear weapon, and within a week, complete nuclear disarmament had finally been achieved on Earth.

The sequence of events had left one of the most populated, sprawling megalopolis on Earth a vast urban desert, where the few inhabitants that remained slunk in the ruins and scraped what they could to survive. There wasn't much of a workforce left for the Master to exploit here, and very little hope for Martha to try and tap into.

 _Then again, how exactly is one supposed to give hope to people who have lost nearly every single family member and nearly every person they knew?_ Martha asked herself. _And a third of them seem to be kids, most of them starving._

Seeing such bereavement brought up Martha's recurring worries about her family. Events had gone so fast on the day Harold Saxon had become Prime Minister, and of course on the following day, and as of today, Martha still didn't have the faintest idea what had happened to the rest of her own family. Had her brother Leo managed to hide, or had he just become another victim of the Toclafane? Her parents were prisoners of the Master, and they appeared in the background of the Time Lord's broadcast messages on a semi-regular basis, but sometimes they didn't, and Martha couldn't help but worry that they were just… gone. And she couldn't do anything about it.

Except hope that the Bad Wolf would not care that Rose had been deeply wounded psychologically by her mother when the entity finally showed up. That story wasn't going to end badly for Francine Jones… Right?

* * *

 _The Valiant. Day 102 of the Last Year._

* * *

When the woman showed up inside her cell, Rose couldn't help a bitter chortle. "He always finds a new button, doesn't he, Francine Jones?"

The other woman stood silently, chewing lightly on her lips, but Rose didn't see that. She had closed her eyes, and her next words came in a tired voice.

"Whatever you have to say, whatever you have to do to remind me just how much you hate me for killing your daughter, just say and do it."

"I don't hate you."

The voice had been trembling, barely above a murmur. Rose still didn't believe it.

"I'm sorry" Rose replied. "Twice, because I couldn't save Patricia and because I don't believe you."

"I don't" the older woman insisted. "Every day, I walk past here and stop and see you hanging on this wall, and even on the best of days there's a little less of you inside the cell. I'm not even sure you know how long you have been stuck in there, but it's taken its toll."

Rose concentrated, and a faint light shone from beneath her closed lids. "A hundred days, twenty-one hours, forty-five minutes and eleven seconds. Well, by now it's been thirteen, no, fourteen, and if I keep counting it's not going to make for much of a conversation but that might be a preferable idea. Oh. By the way. Twenty-two seconds."

Francine turned to begging. "Please, don't do that, don't let yourself go mad in there, you've got to hang on."

"Why do you care?" Rose shouted, eyes snapping wide open and still glowing gold – to see a woman in a housemaid's clothes with a face bathed in tears and hands jointed in a gesture of prayer, her expression showing how much she was torn.

Silence fell between the two women for a moment, until Rose spoke up again.

"I don't understand" she said. "You've never even been in here, how would you even know what I've been looking like or what I'm enduring?"

"One of the walls offers a transparent view from the outside. All you have to do is push a button" Francine said, her voice shaking. "I'll admit that the first time I looked, I wanted to see you suffering in there, but then there was this terrible thing inside with you and I saw you screaming and screaming and screaming, and I instantly wished I'd never looked."

"Yeah" Rose said bitterly. "At the time, I kind-of wish I hadn't, too."

"But ever since then" Martha's mother went on, "I've never managed to stop looking, whenever I could get away with it, and I've been waiting to find a way to get inside your cell, and try and release you from it."

"And I commend you for your effort" a chilling voice said from behind Francine Jones. The older woman's fears were realized when she turned to see the Time Lord looking at her from the entrance, looking fascinated. "You know, little wolf, I'd really be curious to hear just what it is you do to get so many people from so many different occasions to think you're something so special. I know that for others, it's hatred at first sight and it stays that way and that I understand, you _are_ a fake blonde chavette with a sickeningly sugary outlook on life, an atrocious gob and an unhealthy need to go _deus ex machina_ whenever whoever is holding your strings at the time leaves you a shred of a chance, but how do so many people like you? How do people who even _hated_ you just decide to start to like you, like Missus Jones here?"

Rose gave him a tongue-touched smile, but with none of the usual teasing or warm undertones, just a glare full of defiance. "Sorry mate, this one's on you" she said.

The Master smiled. "Ah." He turned to Francine and began to advance on the woman, who backed into a side wall, looking terrified. "The funny part is, there are other things I can do to make what happened here cease to matter."

The Master grasped the face of the petrified older woman, forcing her to look at him. His next words were said at a slower pace than his usual speech patterns, articulated more distinctly. "The only thing that matters to you, Francine Jones, is serving me."

"The only thing that matters to me, Francine Jones, is serving the Master" Martha's mother echoed in a soulless voice.

"You will not want to look at Rose Tyler again" the Master went on.

"I will not want to look at Rose Tyler again."

"You will now return to your duties."

"I will now returned to my duties."

The Master loosed his grasp on the woman and stepped back. Francine Jones walked away, her movements rigid, almost mechanical-looking.

"Some form of hypnotic mind control" Rose assessed, trying her best to mask her own horror. "But you haven't been doing that to me. You think I've got too strong a will."

"You clever girl" the Master complimented with false sweetness. "But don't worry, we'll get there in the end. I'll find a way to break you before long."

"A hundred days and counting" Rose challenged. The Master did not reply; he just took a long time looking at her, from head to toe. "It certainly looks like it has been" he finally said, and he turned, in what Rose now identified as her jailor's way of delivering a parting shot.

"You know, you really should look into a mirror, someday" the Time Lord said casually. "Maybe I'll bring one with me on my next visit."

Rose already had a fair idea of what she must look like – deathly pale, but the pallor would be hidden under layer upon layer of filth. She had long since stopped bothering about any sense of decorum in relieving herself – and anyway, there were automated systems in the cell to get rid of the leaked refuse and of the smell, leaving behind only discomfort and the knowledge there was evidence of her degradation, beyond where her field of vision could go. And she could see at the corner of her eye that she hadn't gone emaciated at least. No real food or drink had passed her lips for over a hundred days, but she was being nourished more than adequately through her skin. Rose's real worry there was what would happen when she'd get released – there was no way, at this point, that her digestive organs had not completely atrophied, and starting to eat and drink again would quite possibly kill her.

Of course, that wouldn't be a concern if the Master ended up winning. But Rose simply refused to give up. And as new hours passed her by, she fell back on a way of distracting herself that was among the simplest imaginable.

Dun-dun-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun-dun, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four.

Now that silence was no longer of much comfort to her, Rose was finding that she rather liked the drums.

* * *

 _Sea of Japan. Day 139 of the Last Year._

* * *

It was night, and it was terrifying. Except that there was so much light rising from the East that it really wasn't life, and Martha Jones was too busy mourning to be focusing on the perils of crossing a turbulent sea alone on a lifeboat.

The idea had sounded very bright at the time. A child's idea, simple and imaginative, suggested to her back in Chittagong. An idea to give her travels a little bit more flair, and really a simple diversion, a bit of misdirection to give the Master a wrong lead to investigate when more rumours about Martha Jones would reach him through whatever means of surveillance he was employing.

Except only the Master himself was capable of seeing through the perception filter Rose had implanted inside her phone, none of his agents and Toclafane could, and the Time Lord's reaction to learning about his most wanted fugitive laying her hands on a weapon capable of threatening his life in Tokyo had resulted in an overreaction of a colossal magnitude, simply for a chance of maybe killing her. And now, over a hundred million people were dead and an entire country reduced to molten slag, burning a bright red in the middle of the night; and all of that because Martha Jones had gone to Japan to pick up a sophisticated water gun.

And Martha couldn't help but feel responsible for all those deaths.

"I understand how you sometimes feel like, now, Rose" she said in a whisper drowned by the churning of the waves. It didn't really matter, of course, Rose Tyler was very far away from her, a prisoner on the _Valiant_.

Martha shook her head energetically. Right now, she couldn't afford to remember how bad her friend had looked like, no more than she could afford to linger and mourn for all the deaths she had caused.

She thought of them anyway. Those people she'd met, forced into deplorable conditions like in so many places, but crammed on top of one another like she had never thought possible, like in one of those barracks where she'd stayed one night, in which hundreds of women were made to sleep in seating positions on the floor, held by and wedged in between the legs of the woman behind them in grotesque, uncomfortably warm and pungently stinking human chains. And still, silently resilient, refusing to show shame. In better times, a younger Martha would have called them outrageously stubborn and clinging to outdated traditions. But these weren't better times, and this wasn't a younger Martha Jones.

Ironically, being the Master's prisoner, Rose enjoyed far better living conditions – if one excepted the way she'd been clamped to a white wall, forced to hang there, just a few centimetres above ground. And she was changing. Her golden eyes had turned harder, and looked set deeper in a pallid face covered in grime that gave off a semi-cadaveric appearance. And then there was her hair, peroxide blonde for the most part, brunette closer to her head – it had been a long time since Rose had had any chance to bleach it, except that she would no longer need to. For what Martha estimated to be a duration between two and three months, the young woman's hair had actually grown white.

The lifeboat was taking water from the churn. Absently, Martha detached a bucket from where it was clamped and started emptying the frail embarkation, feeling, as she sometimes did, guilty about a conclusion she'd reached: the Rose Tyler imprisoned on the _Valiant_ had to be expendable. Bad Wolf already existed at two earlier points in Rose's timeline, each time more than capable of reaching across all of time and space, if either version of the entity did end up hearing the call. Rose could die without really altering the chances for Bad Wolf to pick up on the signal.

Really, at this point, Martha was expendable herself. Her stories and her call about the Bad Wolf had already gone far and wide, and every now and then she found new relays with people connected to one adventure of Rose Tyler or another. And every now and then, there were very old people whose lives hadn't been touched by Rose, but rather by the Doctor, who they described as either a frail grandfatherly man in Victorian clothing or a younger, shorter man wearing a scruffy suit. The duality would have confused Martha quite a bit had she not heard Rose talk about regeneration – the Doctor's way of cheating death.

Absently, Martha continued to throw water out of her boat as she mused about the extraordinary powers she'd heard the Doctor and the Bad Wolf possessed. And not for the first time, but with more urgency than ever, the young woman hoped that whatever the latter's powers were, they included the ability to return the dead to life. Saving the world after over a billion people had already lost their lives would never feel like a victory to Martha Jones.

* * *

 _The Valiant. Day 150 of the Last Year._

* * *

Jack Harkness had lost his sanity. And Rose was hardly surprised of the fact when the Master explained to her exactly what he'd been doing to the poor captain.

"Man who cannot die, such a temptation!" the Master said gleefully. "I was very, very curious about what had been done to him and whether there was a limit to the energies sustaining him as an ambling fixed point. Oh boy, that's an interesting one! He really cannot die. In fact I think I could keep killing him constantly for a million years and the good captain would _still_ come back to life."

"How many times have you killed him?" Rose asked venomously.

The Master pulled a face. "Couple dozen thousand? I didn't really pay attention and keep count, actually, just left him alone impaled on a grate that just kept killing him over and over again for a couple of months or so for a statistical collection of data." He grinned. "Oh, you wouldn't believe what I've found out."

"I'm not quite sure I want to" Rose grumbled.

"The energies used to sustain him. They give off the same signature you did in Southwark Cathedral."

"So what?"

The Master made a show of looking at a watch on his wrist. "Wait for it" he said, tapping his foot at a rhythm of four beats. "Wait for it."

"Wait for what?" Rose growled, and the Master gave her an exasperated look.

"Please, at least _try_. He. Gives off. The same. Energies. Bad Wolf. Does."

"Great. Maybe that means I'm immortal too when I'm the Bad Wolf" Rose said with mock enthusiasm.

"Really, the ability of humans to blind themselves to truths that would hurt them is just grotesque" the Master muttered after a roll of his eyes. "Are you going to try and prove a little cleverer than that, or should I just throw the truth in your face?"

"What, are you trying to explain to me that it's my fault Jack became a fixed point?" Rose retorted with plain exasperation. Then her expression froze. "Oh no" she said, sounding horrified. "Tell me I didn't."

The Master snapped his fingers. "No medal for the girl, you were a little slow" he said caustically. "But yes, you did! One day in the year two hundred thousand one hundred, on the game station – the good captain proved rather talkative after the third thousand death or so, helped me a lot with context."

"I made him immortal" Rose said in a hollow voice. "The first time I was Bad Wolf. That's why he feels so wrong; I made him a fixed point."

"And you poured enough life into him to resurrect half of this planet's apes. He's not going to die for a very, very, very long time. Which is, incidentally, why I made sure the poor captain would never do anything again, ever." The Master's look turned to one of mock pity. "You see, I'm afraid all the dying in quick succession has left his most vulnerable organ permanently dead – I'm talking about the brain, of course."

"Brain dead" Rose echoed in a whisper.

"Oh yes. And still useful, the good little freak" the Master added gleefully. "Because thanks to him, I know I don't need to break you. I just need you physically incapable of thinking in ways that would be prejudicial to me or my plans, which a few judicious targeted lobotomies should be able to accomplish – sorry little wolf, I'm afraid that joke I made in 1969 isn't going to be that much of a joke in the end. And do you know the best part?"

Rose didn't reply, her mind had frozen with the realization all her efforts trying to stay sane had been useless after all. She barely heard the Master happily explaining he'd had his pick of more than four billion test subjects to identify the exact ablations he would need to perform, and no more responsive when the Time Lord explained to her that she was expected for surgery.

* * *

 _Seven months later. Gloucestershire. Day 364 of the Last Year._

* * *

It was on a grey and drizzly day that Martha Jones set foot once more on the soil of England. She had continued with her travels across the world, visiting Korea, China, and then walked past the immense construction sites of Siberia and crossed over the Arctic Ice into Alaska, before taking a trip that led her all the way down the West coasts of the Americas and then all the way back up the East coasts, leaving them for a quick jaunt over to the devastated cities that had been Ottawa and Montréal. Then she had stowed away on a cargo ship with the complicity of its crew, leaving the Saint Lawrence and headed back to Europe.

And presently, she had just made her way to the shore on a small rowboat that was now headed back to its mothership, and left alone with her contact on a beach of Gloucestershire, a tall young man with short cropped hair and a rather long nose, who led her quietly away from the beach. They were due a trip to Gloucester itself, and the young man, she'd been told, was a nurse and had a permit to drive for that reason.

"So. What's your name?" Martha asked after a while. She always made a point to try and learn the identities of those who'd helped her on her journey.

"Rory Williams" the young man replied. "And I know you're Martha Jones, of course. R- er, Amy's guardian seems to know you too. I mean, really know you" he added, embarrassed, running his hand behind his head. "She says she's met you and all, and that you spent some time traveling together."

Martha couldn't help but feel a little amused. "Does Amy's guardian have a name?"

"She does" Rory said with a small smile. "And she'd like to meet you, if you can spare the time."

The medical student mulled on that. "I have one more day than I really need. Do you live close to Gloucester?"

"Half an hour further inland" Rory answered, climbing over a rough stone wall at the edge of the beach. "Small town called Leadworth." The young man went over the top, climbed down a little and turned, holding out a hand to help Martha over the wall, a rueful smile on his face. "Well, we used to be small. Grew a few times larger over the past year."

The words came as such a surprise to Martha that she stopped paying attention to what she was doing, and sure enough, she slipped on the wet stone, only to be caught by Rory.

"Hey, here, here, I got you" he said, voice straining with the effort of holding Martha aloft. The medical student found her footing again, but she waited until she was safely on the other side to voice her astonishment.

"Sorry for the scare. It's just that I've been traveling all over the world for nearly a year, and it's the first time I heard of a town whose population grew _larger_."

Rory gave her another embarrassed smile. "I know" he said. "Feels a little weird to us too, but we got used to it. I mean, we're not going to start sending refugees away, are we?"

The drive to Leadworth in a repurposed ambulance car was spent with little conversation at first, until Rory failed to resist the temptation of 'talking shop', or more specifically about medicine. The reserved young man turned out to have a rather sharp mind and real passion for medical science. He was also quite curious about what further studies would be required to become a fully qualified doctor, and to Martha's surprise, the two found themselves engaged in an extensive comparison between the skills practised during nurse training and a doctor's internship.

Then Martha couldn't resist the temptation to recount her first trip to the isle of Kos extensively. And she was surprised by the aplomb with which the young man accepted what was supposed to be an impossibility – normally, people reacted to her stories with surprise, wonder or denial, but not like they were familiar. And Martha couldn't help but ask: "Who are you, Rory Williams?"

The young man looked embarrassed once again. "I'm just a nurse from Leadworth, England, 2008; I never experienced anything of the kind you did. But Amy's guardian, she was a time traveller, once."

"Who is she?" Martha asked intensely, and the young man looked taken aback.

"Amy? She's a childhood friend. Helps run the town and house new refugees when they come."

"Not your childhood friend, her guardian" Martha said waspishly. "Who is she?"

"Honestly, I don't know anymore. For ten years everyone in town thought she was just a Londoner who'd fled the Estates there to find better quality of life and settled for our town. Now she's holding our community together and protecting us. Kind-of like a regent exercising the Queen's rule in Leadworth."

"Does she have a name?" Martha asked pointedly. Instantly, the shift in the young man's expression told her she'd learn no more from him. At least he had the good grace of explaining to her why and give her some reassurance.

"Yes, she has a name" Rory replied, "and I'm sorry, but she specifically asked that none of us tell you until you see her. I can't tell you who Amy's guardian is, but I can promise you she doesn't work for the Master. If you don't trust her for this reason and don't want to see her, I completely understand, but you should probably still spend the night with us. If there's one place in this world where you'll be safe from him, it's Leadworth."

Martha sighed and stayed quiet for a moment, studying the young man driving her and pondering. Finally, she made a decision. "Not wanting me to know her name doesn't speak too much in favour of your friend's guardian, obviously" she began to say, "but on the other hand, you, Rory, look like a sensible and kind young man and someone I should trust, so I'll ask you this. That time traveling woman; do you trust her?"

"With all our lives" Rory replied without the slightest hesitation.

And his expression didn't speak of anything other than sincerity to Martha. She nodded. "Good enough for me."

* * *

 _Leadworth. Day 364 of the Last Year._

* * *

The town of Leadworth was really an overcrowded one, but that wasn't the detail that struck Martha when she first came in view of the town. What caught her eye was that every single building of the bustling town was entirely untouched, in a world where every other concentration of habitations Martha had visited had been damaged at least to some extent by the Toclafane. It was also a town where the Master's soldiers (or rather, his prison guards) were conspicuously absent.

Rory had noticed her noticing. "Yeah, the Master's men and his sphere-bots never come here" he said with a small but contented smile. "It's like they don't even know this place exists. We've even got a good deal of arable land out of their reach, safe circle extends four-odd kilometres from the centre point in all directions. Had very good crops this year, that's how we can feed all the extra mouths. Don't know how we'll manage if the numbers keep increasing, though."

"We win or lose the day after tomorrow, it might not really matter" Martha said without thinking as she took in the sight of a human population who were not scurrying, wallowing or labouring under threat, just leading lives as normal and ordinary as could be for refugees. "This place is quite something. Happiest town on all of planet Earth. And I suppose it has to do with Amy's guardian?"

Rory's voice turned fierce. "She's been protecting us ever since the Master took over. She's never let any of us down."

"Sounds like quite the formidable she" Martha murmured. Then, louder: "Do I need to wait, or do you think I can go meet with the Marquess of Leadworth?"

The young man grimaced. "Oh no, don't call her that, she hates hyperbole, and worse for you, she'll make sure you always remember she hates it."

"What do I call her, then?"

Rory's small smile returned. "You'll know when you see her."

He drove Martha to a large two-storey white house with grey roofing, sitting inside a hedged property. The entire lower floor's walls were shrouded in vines, and the door to the house was painted in a strangely familiar blue. After Martha had got off the ambulance and as she walked across the yard, the door opened, revealing a lithe young woman with long ginger hair, who talked with a distinct Scottish accent.

"Hello Rory!" she said, waving at the young man. "And hello, Martha Jones! Come in, come to the kitchen, and meet with the most dangerous entity in the entire universe."

Martha choked on that. "Wh-wh-what?"

The redhead winked. "I call her mum."

With that the young woman disappeared, and a baffled Martha turned to look at her driver. The young man shrugged and smiled, and gestured for her to go inside the house.

The interior was warm and cosy, and judging by the row of curious children faces lined along the ramp of the stairs, shared with at least two other families. Martha ventured a shy little wave, which was met with waves sent back and a few smiles, but she didn't have time to linger. A "coming, Martha?" guided her towards the kitchen, in front of which the young redhead waited, motioning the medical student inside before closing the door behind her.

There was only one person in the kitchen, a bottled blonde woman busy with a kettle, dressed, of all things, in a blue pinstriped suit and sandshoes. The height of the woman and her haircut looked quite familiar, like her silhouette, once she made abstraction of the whole man's suit thing.

Martha's mouth fell open. Of course the woman hadn't wanted her name spread around.

"I can hear you staring, Martha", came a voice that was unmistakably-

"Rose?"

The blonde in pinstripes turned. She was wearing an impeccably pressed light blue shirt and a burgundy cravat under the suit's jacket, the ensemble looking rather absurd on Rose Tyler. The other noticeable difference, aside from the clothes, was the eyes; those were a rich brown, and they looked strangely old. And surrounded by rectangular glasses, completing the rather ridiculous tableau.

Martha shook her head energetically and looked again at the other woman in the room, who was looking back at the medical student curiously, head tilted slightly to the side.

The pinstriped Rose spoke again at a rapid clip. "Yes, Rose Tyler is still a prisoner of the Master on the _Valiant_ , and yes, my name is also Rose Tyler, and I'm from the future, and no, I'm not telling you how far in the future, it's rude to ask at my age, which should be enough for you to know that I'm at least twenty-five, and probably closer to a couple hundred, give or take a hundred and seventy-five."

Martha opened her mouth to ask a question, but was cut off.

"No, I'm not the Bad Wolf, although a lot of people still call me that. What I am is a mad girl in a box, just that and exactly that, and yes, since you intend to ask nicely, I can stop answering to your thoughts and let you get a word in the actual voiced conversation. Bit of a waste of time, except when you are in a hurry, it becomes a stupid waste of time, but hey, if you don't waste the time it makes humans uncomfortable, so what can you do?"

The medical student took a deep breath and sat down on one of the low benches lining the central table, feeling a little overwhelmed. She swallowed.

"Future you is weird" Martha said hoarsely.

"You could definitely do with a nice cup of tea" Rose replied, and Martha noticed a steaming cup on a gilded saucer right in front of her she could swear had not been on the table the second before. "Milk, two sugars. I know it's not your favourite, but you look a little on the peckish side. Got to keep you healthy, you wonderful, wonderful girl."

Martha took a sip from the tea. Somehow, the cup had 'manifested' at the exact temperature she liked – the last oddity in a list that was growing alarmingly long, alarmingly fast. She settled for an innocuous first question. "When did you turn so… hyper?" Martha asked, putting the cup back down in its saucer with a soft clink.

Rose looked at her, eyebrows raised above the frame of her glasses.

"No, seriously, you've been talking so fast and about so much in a few instants that if this keeps up for another minute I'm going to have a monstrous headache."

The blonde woman harrumphed and plopped herself down on the bench right opposite Martha, in front of another cup of tea that had certainly not been there moments before nor put there by anyone – a cup that went drained in a few ferocious gulps, assuming tea could be drunk ferociously. The cup clanked in its saucer, and the blonde woman groused. "Spoilsport. And I was having so much fun."

Martha stared at Rose. "You are having fun" she said flatly.

"This world ends in two days, Martha" Rose replied tartly, "everyone is entitled to a little bit of fun."

"I'm trying to _save_ this world" Martha growled.

"Not this world, you won't. In less than two days, eight hundred and thirty-two point ninety-seven million people are going to be stopping all that they'll have been doing at that time and start focusing on thinking about two words you've been rather diligently spreading over the course of the past year. And less than five minutes later, this world will end, it will disappear from reality. It will be like it had never existed – probably because it has never existed."

Martha blinked. "How can future you be in this world if it never existed for you?" she asked, now baffled, and Rose groaned.

"Very complicated, all of that timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly stuff that'd take a couple decades or five to explain halfway properly, and like I said, this world has less than two days left, so we're a little short on time."

Martha groaned, massaging her temples. "And I thought you had a gob before. Okay, is there a simpler explanation you can give me?"

"Not really." Rose put away her glasses and offered an apologetic smile. "Anything I tell you now, you won't remember in two days, but the Master will find out when he attempts to read your mind, and it's a really bad idea, seeing as how this version of me exists a good while later in his future after this world ends."

"Hang on a minute." Martha traced a couple of circles with her finger on the surface of the light wooden table. "You said this world ends in two days."

"Correct."

"You also said I won't remember anything in two days."

"Also correct."

"But you also said the Master would remember what happened in two days."

"And again, correct."

Martha felt herself slump on her bench, feeling intense discouragement invading her and a terrible sense of failure. "The Master is going to win, isn't he?" she said glumly. "His plan will succeed."

"Mayyybe, and in a manner of speaking, I suppose" Rose drawled. "Just like your plan is going to succeed, in a manner of speaking."

"Great" Martha said dejectedly. "Just great."

"Brave heart, Martha Jones" Rose said heartily. Then she frowned. "No, that sounded a bit silly. Anyway, that's not why I wanted to see you here. I've got something much more important to do while you can remember it."

"Something to help me through the next couple of days? Thank you!" Martha said sarcastically, and Rose growled and glared at her.

"Heeeeyyyy! That was _my_ line!"

"What line?"

"Thank you?"

Martha blinked. "For what?"

Rose's voice and expression had turned grave. "Thank you for all you've done to get here and to get all those people ready to call out for the first coming of the second me."

"What?"

"I know, it doesn't make sense to you at all, and you're never even going to remember, because like I said, all this world, all this struggle, all this year, it will never have happened. Never have existed. The only ones who will remember this aborted timeline are the Master and the new me, from your perspective. But that doesn't mean you should never have been thanked for all you've done. Even if that meant diving back into a reality that has long since ceased to exist and never touched the lives of anybody but me and the Master."

"You really aren't making sense" Martha said, now visibly scared.

"I know." Rose smiled kindly at the young woman. "That's why I made you a cup of tea."

* * *

It was a very disoriented and quite scared Martha who made her way to one of the town's restaurants that night – an actual restaurant, with actual waiters and unspectacular but actual cuisine, something that was unheard-of anywhere else on planet Earth by this point. The only oddity was the absence of pricing on the menu, which instead reminded the customers to refrain from excessive orders. Martha didn't know if enough wine to get herself drunk would count as an excessive order, but she was rather keen on trying.

In Martha's defence, the Rose Tyler in Leadworth had described in detail what was going to happen to her and around her in a rather misguided attempt to reassure her old friend. It had _not_ helped, and it had, if any doubts had still lingered in her mind, confirmed for Martha that the young woman she knew was going to turn into something distinctly alien.

Martha was about to wave for a waiter when she noticed the trio of young people making their way to her table. She'd only had limited contact with Amelia Pond, and had no idea who the second girl in the group was, although she wasn't sure she liked the rather outrageous display of swagger. The trio, however, also included Rory Williams, and that was what convinced Martha to remain seated where she was, although she was tempted to reconsider when the lass with swag plopped herself down directly across from Martha and launched an impromptu pique at the protector of Leadworth.

"Can see you've met the great Rose Tyler and found her falling quite short of what a time traveller's supposed to make happen whenever history takes a wrong turn. Don't worry, you've just met the one person in town who doesn't think the sun shines out of her-"

"Mels" Amy growled.

"What? It's true, if she actually gave a damn about what happens to this planet Rose would have fixed all that's gone wrong with the Master in a jiffy. Instead she just sits there at the back end of the world and plays defender of the town while the rest of the world suffers."

Amy let her head fall onto the table, then sat back upright. "And to think that only four years ago, you were the one who defended Rose when we found out she was a time traveller."

"Yes, and since then I used my head!" Mels fired back.

"Rory", Amy growled at the only male in present company, who slunk back in his chair and looked at Martha for rescue. The medical student returned a puzzled look.

"They both scare me" Rory said simply.

"Yeah, but she's not your girlfriend" Amy said fiercely.

Martha couldn't help a snort, and then a small laugh, which earned her a small smile from Rory and a glare from each of the two other young women.

"Sorry, I was just thinking of the rule regarding all people who frequent Rose Tyler for any length of time" Martha explained, and she grinned. "We're all crazy. Except maybe Rory" she amended, "you certainly look sensible."

It was Mels' turn to snort. "Yeah, except he's the one who leaves the shelter and goes making all kinds of rounds with fake papers and risks getting killed every time."

"I'm just helping people out there to find their way here" Rory mumbled in a manner that seemed surprisingly self-deprecating to Martha. "Not everyone has our luck, Mels" he added, finding some assurance. "If you'd been out in the world, you'd realize how bad the people outside are having it. How much they suffer."

"What makes you think I haven't been out there?" Mels challenged, and her two friends stared at her. "Yeah, Rory's not the only one who's seen what the Master's really doing to our world while pretty proper time traveling Rose Tyler sits primly in her kitchen and pretends she gives a damn by sheltering one lousy town in the middle of nowhere."

To her surprise, Martha felt indignation on behalf of the older version of Rose Tyler. "Oi, do you have any idea of what Rose is going through just right now because of the Master, or is your head so far up your ass you never saw she was featured in every third or fourth communication by the Master and looking worse and worse every time?" The medical student had expected protests and indignation in response to that statement, but certainly not evidence of a lack of understanding. "What?" she challenged. "Did none of you three ever pay attention?"

It was Rory who explained, with a familiar look of embarrassment. "We… don't watch the Master's mandatory broadcasts here in Leadworth" he explained. "I've only seen Rose on them a couple of times because I happened to be out there when the broadcasts happened."

Mels' jaw dropped. "Prim and proper Rose Tyler is a prisoner of the Master?"

"Yeah, she is" Martha confirmed, rousing the loud girl again.

"But that's just not possible! She's spent the last eleven years in this town sitting on her hot pinstriped arse!"

"Mels", Amy said patiently, "you're the one who first realized multiple versions of Rose can exist at the same time. Did you ever stop to think that maybe the reason mum wasn't getting involved in all this was because another version of her was already involved?"

"Younger version of her" Martha supplied, "much younger. And both the Master and I are trying to get yet another version of her involved at the conclusion of all this whole mess, so we might end up with three or four versions all present at the same time. And your Rose is the oldest version; she _knows_ how all of this is going to end, and she knows an unwholesome lot of details about how the end is going to unfold, and the proof of that is right now, she told me there'd be a waiter behind me ready to take our orders."

Said waiter and the three youths gaped at the medical student. And Mels swore. "That's got nothing to do with the end of the world. Why the hell did she tell you about that?"

"I've just put an end to an argument about Rose and the Master" Martha said, some tension returning to her voice as she turned around and saw the waiting waiter. And this time, the reassuring look came from Amy.

"Yeah, she does that, every now and then" the ginger-head said, just… she doesn't normally do that about important people or important events. Usually she only does it to protect us."

"She does it to show off" Mels countered. "It's hot."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Welcome to a world where your best friend wants to jump your mother."

The waiter coughed behind Martha. "Should I come back later, perhaps?"

"Why? Aren't you having fun?"

* * *

 _The Valiant. Day 366 of the Last Year._

* * *

That evening had helped Martha soldier on during the final sequence of events. The following morning, at the earliest hours, Martha and Rory had gone on to Colchester to meet with Professor Docherty, who would betray them later. Martha had found out the heart-breaking secret behind the Toclafane. She had spent one evening in Gloucester, with Rory still with her, telling the stories of the Bad Wolf one last time and inviting the people to chant for the benevolent entity at the final hour.

And then the Master had come, along with his soldiers, and he'd shot Rory dead with his laser screwdriver, and Martha had found she could hardly mourn the brave and clever young man with the long nose, when she knew the whole world was coming to an end in just a few more hours. Back in Leadworth, poor Amy would probably never even know her boyfriend had died trying to buy Martha some time to escape from the Master, his name becoming the last in a near-endless litany of victims who had died because, one day, Martha Jones had decided to go and get a water gun to distract a Time Lord.

A Time Lord who presently was rather put out at discovering the trick that had been played on him when he forced his way into Martha's mind, as the old Rose had said he would. And what the Master found there didn't really reassure him. He wrenched himself out of the young woman's thoughts, and looked with undisguised worry at the figure of his latest creation, a small, catatonic young woman in a prisoner's uniform with short white hair and quietly smouldering golden eyes.

"This is not supposed to be possible" he growled. "I made you. I recreated you down to a cellular level, a modified human spliced with strands from the genomes of two Time Lords. I removed every part of your brain that could be used to grant you free will, emptied part of your head to create a space to harbour a direct connexion with the Time Vortex. You are my instrument! My tool! My servant, and mine alone, and you _cannot escape me_!"

"You think any of us can control the Bad Wolf?" Martha challenged him.

"You think I can't?" the Master retorted.

"Entity holding all of time and space in her grasp? I'm pretty sure no one can control that if she won't let them. All we can do is call for her, and hope she'll respond."

"Yes, I know all about your little plan, and how right now you're using the minds of hundreds of millions of people to send a message" the Master said with a sneer, "and how Archangel itself serves as a relay for all their thoughts, but let me tell you one thing: it's not going to work. And do you know why?" The Master's eyes glinted, and an insane grin formed on his face. "I control the Bad Wolf, because I created the Bad Wolf. What?"

This last irate word aimed at the catatonic form of Rose, who had just moved from her spot so she could shove what Martha knew was a piece of psychic paper in front of the Master's nose.

It was a short message, and it invited another sneer from the Master. "How cute of you. 'I'm the Bad Wolf, I create myself', really." His face and tone grew hateful. "I. Made. You."

And then it clicked for Martha, and suddenly all that had happened during the past year seemed to make terrible sense. "No, you didn't. The Bad Wolf needed you to modify Rose that way, so she let you go through the motions. And right now, this is her telling you we're all done. We've all failed. This world ends."

The white-haired Rose shuddered, and her eyes burst into golden flames, taking the Master aback and prompting him to step away from her hurriedly.

"But this is absurd!" the Time Lord cried out. "This is the reality I created when I activated the paradox machine, it's sealed off from any other possible timelines!"

"It's not sealed off from me" Rose's voice rose, echoing like a multitude, and for once, the Master was the one of the pair who expressed sheer terror. "I'm the Bad Wolf. I can see all of time and space, and all realities. And this reality", and the Bad Wolf's hand seemed to clutch at thin air, "it has gone really, really wrong."

A crimson fissure appeared where Rose's hand had just clawed, crackling with the same type of energy Martha remembered seeing briefly when a younger Rose had attempted to summon the TARDIS in her bedroom, a year and a day ago. Now the white-haired Rose's hand slipped through the fissure, seeming to vanish through it while a horrified Master shouted a "Stop it!" that went ignored, just like the Time Lord went ignored, because the burning gold eyes were trailed on the medical student.

"Martha Jones" Rose's voice echoed. "You called me here."

"Eight hundred and thirty-two point ninety-seven million humans did" the young woman replied, her voice shaking. "They wish for you to save this world, but you're not going to do it, are you?"

"This is not reality" the Bad Wolf replied. "This is just one gigantic paradox that started on the twenty-second day of April in 1969, at five-oh-two PM British standard time, on the shores of Lake Silencio, the day the Master took on Rose Tyler's appearance and killed the Doctor. This world should never have existed, and I'm about to end it."

Out of desperation, the Master pointed his laser screwdriver at the Bad Wolf and fired a beam from it, only to see the entity catch the deadly light in the palm of her hand and absorb it. Then the tool vanished from the Time Lord's hand in a puff of golden motes.

"You are such a fool, who calls yourself the Master, when all you need to be is the Voyager" the entity echoed, her myriad of voices sounding sad. "You don't need to be in charge to own the universe, Koschei. All you have to do is go out there and see it."

The Master glared at her. "For all your powers as a goddess of space and time, you're the exact same type of sentimental fool as the Doctor."

The Bad Wolf ignored that. She clicked her fingers, and the Master disappeared in thin air, leaving the entity free to return her attention to the medical student. "Martha Jones. I have one question for you, before I end this world."

"I'm listening" the young woman replied warily.

"Do you want to remember?"

"What do you mean? I thought I was going to forget everything."

The Bad Wolf smiled. "This paradoxical branch of reality is about to collapse and disappear, everything that happened since the day and time I mentioned that could only have happened because of the paradox machine sustaining this world will never have happened, and nobody else will remember, save for two other people. The Master will revert back to who he was then, but he will remember everything that happened, because he caused the paradox. This transformed Rose Tyler will remember everything that happened to her, and she will be transported back to when the paradox occurred, because I'm sending myself there, now that I've been changed in the way I must change in my future."

"I can get how that works" Martha said tensely. "But why me? Why do you offer me to remember?"

"Because, Martha Jones, you of all people have earned the right to realize billions of lives were saved because one desperate night, you decided to wander the whole of Earth and spread tales and hopes with the story of the Bad Wolf, and it is because you told that story that all those people will never have died, and quite a few more will be born. I'm only making things right here because you called me here, to see what needed to be mended. So I'll ask again," and the entity smiled. "Martha Jones, do you wish to remember?"

Martha mulled that in silence. Her eyes found the catatonic forms of her parents, both of whom had also been on the bridge, silent and unresponsive witnesses of the end to an entire branch of reality.

"What did he do to them?" Martha asked the Bad Wolf.

"Brainwashed. Under his mind control" the entity replied. "The Master can easily force his way into human minds when they're close to him, force them to obey, find out what they know and understand."

And then Martha realised why the older Rose had lied to her about not keeping her memories.

"Because I'll remember" the young woman said stonily. "And I'll make sure the whole world knows to be wary of the Master, but that way, at least, he doesn't know I do."

"That's right." The Bad Wolf smiled. "Now run, you clever girl. And remember."

Martha ran. And somehow, the door to the bridge on the _Valiant_ led her back to her bedroom like it had been a year and a day ago.

* * *

 _The shores of Lake Silencio. April 22_ _nd_ _, 1969._

* * *

Rose regained consciousness in a flash, woken by the drumming in her head, and immediately made for one of the three actors in the scene unfolding right in front of her, a woman who looked like she had before her capture by the Master, but the furious young time traveller with the short white hair and the golden eyes knew it wasn't her at all. This was Missy, who gazed at Rose in shock with Rose's own face as the young woman marched upon her and reached at her necklace, tearing it off in one brutal gesture.

"Now, really, young woman, this is not necessary!" a gentlemanly voice protested, coming from a tall, aged man with wild white hair and a coat seamed with a cape. A woman with a wealth of dark blonde hair pulled in a bun, wearing a military uniform but without rank insignias at the man's right looked in shock where the Rose impostor had been standing.

"Doctor!"

"Yes, Liz, I can see that" the Doctor replied. "The older one was wearing a perception filter."

"Then all of this was fake" Liz said furiously, now glaring furiously at the small middle-aged woman clothed in black.

"Oh no, it's a thing, and a very real thing" Rose said to her, her voice fierce, "and it's my responsibility to take care of her. I'm the one she gave the slip to."

"Hold on a minute" the Doctor said, and he stepped towards Missy. "We came all the way here from England because we were supposed to meet an envoy from the Council of the Time Lords."

"And I'm afraid you were misled" Missy told him with a small, cruel smile.

Rose stepped in between the two Time Lords, looking straight at the Doctor, who took the time to scrutinize the short white-haired woman in prisoner's clothing from a different century, with her faintly gleaming golden eyes and a prominent mouth with generous lips not made for the deadly serious expression currently adorning her face.

"Step aside, please" the Doctor said with a kind smile. "She's a Time Lord, I can still sense that much."

"She's here to create a paradox, Doctor" the young woman replied through gritted teeth, "and she's just lost the means to sustain it. I don't think I need to describe to you what happens if you stay here."

"No" the Doctor admitted. "I suppose not." He turned to his companion. "Come on, Liz. Let's get back to Bessie."

"So we drove all the way here from London for nothing?" the woman said, clearly upset, as she walked away. The Doctor replied something, but Rose didn't quite catch it. She was too distracted by-

A vision of Professor Yana complaining about the drums flashed before her eyes. It vanished as quickly as it had come, and Rose glared furiously at Missy. "What have you done to me?"

Missy smiled cruelly. "I can guess you're about to abandon me here and let me waste thirty-nine years of this life until I've caught up with a timeline I can't cause paradoxes in should I try something to get back at you, so I think my answer is going to be 'that's for me to know, and for you to find out'."

"Damn you" Rose hissed, and she turned away and stumbled in the direction where she could sense the TARDIS was waiting. Missy's voice called after her.

"You know, the Doctor would much prefer the time and space goddess version of you!" the Time Lady yelled. "Far more merciful!"

"I'm like you made me!" Rose shouted back at her, before she disappeared into the TARDIS. Moments later, the familiar whirring made itself heard, and Missy giggled.

"Silly me, completely forgot to warn you taking the TARDIS in flight right now was the worst idea you could ever have. You're going to either vanish from existence or blow up the whole universe" She licked her lips. "I'm either dead or stuck for four decades; you die in a catastrophic failure of the Doctor's precious old girl either way. I win."

Then Missy jumped in surprise: suddenly, out of nowhere, a tall, gaunt, rattling alien with a half-formed face and wearing a black pressed suit had appeared in front of her, and it looked distinctly unfriendly…

* * *

 **A/N:** And so ends the first of these series of Rose's adventures in the Doctor's stead. There will be a bit of an epilogue posted later, concurrently with the first adventure of the next series, which will be posted under a separate title.

 **Somebody Else** , thanks for taking the time to review. And yes, I took the notion of divergence rather seriously!


	15. Epilogue

**A/N:** A completed story. And none of it is mine!

* * *

 **Epilogue**

* * *

Martha Jones ended up resurfacing inside her small flat's living room, hazily hearing the TV droning. The young woman struggled to emerge from the haze she was in, and directed a bleary eye at the monitor, hazily reading a "Harriet Jones set to reveal new cabinet at 10AM after surprise win in general election." The medical student allowed herself a little smile.

Then she spotted one of the aides corralling the press towards their conference room. Martha's jaw dropped, and her hand went for a non-existent pocket on her pyjamas. She then ran to her handheld phone, frantically composing Francine Jones' number. Martha's mother picked up after a few moments.

"So you finally deign to call back" the older woman said flatly. She was immediately cut off by her daughter.

"Mum, Trish is on TV!"

"Well spotted, Jones" her mother replied sarcastically. "Been trying all week to raise you to tell you the news. Martha, I don't mind you going all-in on your studies, what with your final exams getting closer and closer, but you could at least exchange a couple of texts with your mother every now and then."

"Mum, you're not getting me" Martha said with exasperation. "Trish is alive on TV."

"Yes, and she's lucky to be live on TV so soon after that ridiculous performance at Lazarus Industries" Francine said flatly. "Seriously, what possessed her to believe man could invent a machine to turn themselves fifty-odd years younger at the press of a button? And you could have shown up that night at the very least, by the way, Trish could have done with the support of her sister. I don't get why Harriet Jones decided to hire her off that fiasco."

"At least she didn't get blown up in the disaster" Martha murmured.

"Yeah, well, that's what Trish needed your support for, after your little jaunt on the moon a few weeks ago. Your Rose Tyler must have showed up – I don't see who else that could have been, even if she never actually said her name. Alien girl alright, she was dressed for a hiking trip at a formal evening event, technobabbled weirdly enough to lose every other lab coat in attendance, and shorted Lazarus' space shower cabin with what she called a sonic screwdriver before it could blow up." Francine's voice went reproachful. "But you would know all this already if you'd bothered to keep in touch, young lady."

"I'm sorry, Mum" Martha murmured, more bewildered than sorry. "Got to hang up, I'm calling Trish."

"Press conference at Downing Street, you'll only be able to leave a message."

"I know… Love you, mum."

Martha hung up just in time to spare herself having to explain to her mother why she was now breaking down in tears. She was back in her normal time, her sister was alive, and the Master was gone. After a year enduring hell, everything was finally alright in Martha Jones' world.

Now she could heal.

* * *

It was on an uncommonly bright day, on the very last day of October, that Sylvia and Donna Noble buried their husband and father, and it felt to both that they never quite had the time to process what was happening. When Donna had come back home from Egypt slightly after mid-September, her father had been tired and experiencing faint chest pains, but nothing had seemed particularly alarming. The physician had ordered a couple of scans to make sure…

And that was when the Nobles' world had gone free-falling. One moment there was a suspicion of cancerous tumours in the lungs, a hospitalization scheduled, and a biopsy. The next week, another scan in preparation for the biopsy showed metastases in the liver, and the following full body scan had pronounced the death sentence, with another year or so to hope for.

These were devastating news by themselves. By the following week, when they had been waiting for the results of the biopsy, Donna's father already could barely walk to the post office and back to the house. He was still trying to make the most of the situation, and he and Wilf had spent an afternoon looking up a comfortable armchair to spend a good part of the following year in, and Donna, who had listened in, took up a lousy temp job in the city for a month to help finance it. For once, her mother had not harped on Donna's pick.

Then at the next appointment with the oncologist, the quiet and kind man had told Donna's mother not to bother buying equipment for a home hospitalization, and that she shouldn't make plans for Christmas either. Small cell lung cancer, one of the worst and of the fastest progressing. That evening was the one time Donna had seen her mother look utterly defeated. Small mercies: their husband and father hadn't been hospitalized at Royal Hope when the building had vanished in the middle of the day.

Then there had been the warning ahead of starting chemotherapy that in his degraded state, there were one in two odds that it would kill Donna's father rather than slow down the progression of the disease. It was a gamble to try and get to Christmas, and Donna's dad took it.

He had lost. He was gone, five weeks only after the first suspicions something was wrong had arisen. And Donna, her mother and her grandfather stayed behind in front of the tomb for a little private moment after the burial was done.

The freshly dug grave was within seeing distance of another fresh tombstone, of sorts: the monument that had been inaugurated by Harriet Jones a few weeks before, commemorating the victims of Canary Wharf. Donna felt oddly fortunate as she considered how the bodies of a good number of the people on that list would never be found, and their families would only ever, at best, see the names of their departed ones adorning empty sepulchres.

Then Donna spotted the small, lonely figure in black, sat on a bench opposite the memorial, and she couldn't hold back a bitter chuckle. "Of course you'd be there."

"Who's there?" Donna's mother asked dully.

"Friend of mine. Mind if I go and talk to her?"

Donna's mother didn't reply. Her grandfather did, with a wan smile. "Just go. If we need you, you won't be far."

The red-head made her way towards the bench, taking in the changes in her friend's appearance as she did. Gone was the peroxide blonde, Rose's hair had gone entirely white and was cropped in a crew cut, distinctly masculine in look; her face was paler and harder than Donna remembered. The young woman was dressed entirely in black – leather vest, long-sleeved shirt, jeans and safety shoes. But the silhouette, the golden eyes, the generous lips over a prominent jaw and the sad smile all belonged to the Rose Tyler she remembered.

Donna sat down, and the two women stayed in companionable silence for a while.

It was Rose who spoke first. "I'm sorry about your dad."

"Yeah." Donna couldn't help a faint smile. "Should have figured out you'd already know."

"I've known for a while."

A pause. "How long has it been for you?"

"Forty-eight years for me since the last call you'd remember" Rose replied. "Been travelling a fair bit, and I've learned to cope with the responsibilities. Came back here because it's one of a few places where my mum's honoured. For me it's been fifty years to the day since I last saw her."

Donna knew better than to point out Jacqueline Tyler wasn't dead. The Rose Tyler sitting beside her had lived longer in a world where her mother had been lost to her for far longer than she had lived with her. And it struck her the young woman she'd known, barely out of her teens, who'd rescued her on her wedding day was now much older than her. But only her hair and her eyes fit that picture; the face was as fresh and youthful looking as Donna remembered.

"You're a mystery wrapped in an enigma, you know, Rose" she said fondly.

"I live an interesting life" Rose replied quietly.

Donna smiled faintly at that. "You probably won't tell me any details, but just one thing I'm curious about. Has it been forty-eight years since we last talked for you too, or have we stayed in touch?"

Rose pondered over her response for a moment. "We've kept in touch" she said eventually.

"That's good" Donna replied, sounding like she was trying to convince herself. "We're still in touch. That's very good."

There was another pause. The younger woman noticed her friend's fingers were drumming lightly on the bench, probably without Rose realizing she was doing it, and Donna wondered for an instant whether she was boring her friend. It was an unpleasant thought; but then again, this was a day for unpleasant thoughts.

The red-headed woman took a deep breath. "You know, I'm always available if you need to talk to someone." She smiled awkwardly. "I mean, I know I'm probably not going to understand three quarters of what you have to say, but if you need to let something off your chest, I'll be there and listening."

"You've always been" Rose replied quietly "You have for nearly fifty years." And it was more than enough to reassure Donna about their continued friendship.

The redhead cast a glance in the direction of her mother and grandfather. From where she sat, she could see Wilf trying his best to do something to comfort his daughter, even though her mother didn't seem to respond. And Rose had noticed too.

"Go to her" the white-haired woman said quietly.

"Yeah… I should." Donna stood up, and Rose stood with her. The two women looked at one another in silence for another instant.

"Talk to you later" Donna said.

"Yeah." Rose smiled sadly. "Goodbye, Donna."

The pair took off in opposite directions, and Donna quickly reached her mother, who was crying silently, only moving to push away attempts at comforting her. She never noticed Rose was doing very much the same as Sylvia.

* * *

"I need to borrow Hubble."

As was his usual manner, the Doctor had just burst into the office of one Pete Tyler, now Director of Torchwood for a little over a year, and blurted out a demand – not the most outrageous one that had occurred in a rapidly lengthening list of similar incidents.

"What seems to be the problem, Doctor?" Pete asked calmly, wishing as often did that the Doctor bothered with at least a hint of courtesy, but that never seemed to happen whenever the time traveling alien had something urgent on his mind. He did, however, know the Time Lord invariably had given excellent reasons…

"Nothing much" the Doctor replied casually. "I'd just like to look at the stars."

… until now.

"You have a vortex manipulator to look at the stars, Doctor" Pete remarked.

The Time Lord grimaced. "Well, about that, it seems to have developed a bit of a fault. Unreliable things, rubbish compared with a TARDIS, but they do in a pinch – when they work properly, that is, which is what this one doesn't do right now, so… Can I borrow Hubble?"

Something about the Time Lord's manner made Pete uneasy. "Why do you need to look at the stars, Doctor?" the human asked.

"Nothing important" the Doctor repeated, his voice pitching higher on those two words. "So… Can I?"

Pete sighed, and stood up from behind his desk. "Look, Doctor, I don't know what's going on, but more to the point, I have a feeling you don't want to tell me what's going on. And I don't like that."

The Doctor groaned. "Look, I'd rather not say, because it's almost certainly nothing other than my eyes playing tricks on me, but on the off-chance there is something I need to make sure."

"It would be simpler if you told me what you think might be going on" Pete insisted.

He hadn't counted on the Time Lord's manner and expression to turn deadly serious. "Pete."

"Yes?"

"I'm not telling you, because if I'm wrong, you don't need to know what I'm worried might be going on can actually be happening."

Pete raised his eyebrows and gave the Doctor a mirthless smile. "You know Doctor, if I didn't know any better I'd say you're barely trying to hide how little you actually trust me."

"It's not like that" the Time Lord replied quietly. "It's that you're only human."

"Would you have told Rose?"

The Doctor gave a long look at Pete. "Maybe you're the one who's barely hiding how little you actually trust me" he ended up saying.

"Would you have told Rose?" Pete insisted.

Another pause. "I wouldn't have needed to."

"Because she trusts you."

The Doctor nodded, and kept looking at Pete, before he spoke again. "There are horrors out there no one needs to know about until they absolutely have to. Especially when there's nothing they can do about it."

"You wouldn't be asking for my assistance if there was nothing I could do about this" Pete countered.

The Doctor smiled wanly. "There really isn't. And I don't actually need you. It's a vast universe. I can get a better telescope. I can even make one."

"Then why do you-"

The Doctor shook his head. "If you wish to know before I'm sure of anything, ask Jackie where you can find me. You'll understand, when you arrive." The Time Lord activated his vortex manipulator, and vanished in a curtain of light.

* * *

 _This I have foreseen, in the wild and the wind. The Wolf will stand here as witness, at the end of everything. The Wolf, and the Children of the Moment. They will all gather, and one of them will die. I have seen. At the time of ending, the Wolf's conscience will be revealed. So cold and dark. Fire is coming. The endless flames. See her. See the Heart of Her._

 _So speaks Dalek Caan._

* * *

To be continued…

* * *

 **A/N:** The next story is up, titled _The Wandering Wolf_ , part two of four of these series.

Thanks to **ELinkA** for a few kind words. And if you've enjoyed this story, please leave a few of yours in the box below.


End file.
